<p>"That is an intensely competitive environment, where the ability to have only a casual conversation will not get you very far."</p>
<p>My point exactly. If your language skills are going to be of any value, you should be able to speak them FLUENTLY. And I would say that passing the Georgetown proficiency exams is more of a conversational rather than fluency test. </p>
<p>Especially in the case of a language like French, or my language (Spanish), if you want that to be of any value at all you'd better be able to speak it pretty much perfectly because French and Spanish speakers are a dime a dozen. If you want to speak a language that is more difficult, you will have to dedicate a lot of time and energy to it...(even beyond just getting a good grade in the class) but the rewards when you are trying to get a job and being kind of proficient are definitely much higher.</p>
<p>The sense I have gotten from the SFS (I'm just finishing up my first year) is that language study is a means not an ends. The purpose of the language requirement is more of adding to your "toolbox" rather than an ends (ie, let's study languages because we like it). Obviously, it's excellent to learn multiple languages, but you would be doing yourself a disservice (with a view to what the SFS is equipping you to do) by graduating with a toolbox that has a lot of tools but none particularly effective in fixing problems.</p>
<p>Of course, I see everything through the lens of my own future plans, which is to get a job with the government working on development and in-country policy formation (meaning you'd need a pretty good grasp on the language). Plus, I'm more interested in taking a variety of government and regional studies classes and don't really want to sacrifice those for learning a second language.</p>
<p>I know quite a few other people who are less obsessive over their future plans and simply enjoy the opportunity to explore and learn what they want. </p>
<p>My best advice is to mock up a schedule-- try and judge your level of Russian, and whether you'll take Intensive Russian or Intensive French because you're starting that new. And see how that impacts your schedule and how it jives with your own personal goals. Does that make any sense?</p>