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1) I don't know what country you're from, but in America here is how it works: In general, competitive colleges require at least two years of foreign language c
by entendre 13y ago
1) I don't know what country you're from, but in America here is how it works: In general, competitive colleges require at least two years of foreign language classes in high school. Stanford would like to see three or more years, and Harvard urges applicants to take four years.
When a college recommends "two or more" years of a language, they are clearly signaling that language study beyond two years would strengthen your application. No matter where you apply for college, a demonstrated proficiency in a second language will strengthen your application.
Students who have just the minimum can win admission if their applications demonstrate strengths in other areas. Some less competitive schools don't even have a high school language requirement and assume some students will simply study a language once they get to college.
If you score a 4 or 5 on an AP (advanced placement) language exam, most colleges will consider that evidence of adequate high school foreign language preparation (and you're likely to get course credit in college).
2) Foreign language requirements are originally a product of enlightenment era education curriculum and have been kept afloat with notions that in a globalizing economy candidates who can work internationally will garner higher wages and be more productive. This is true, to a degree, but wouldn't you rather work for a Swedish web design firm from your US based coffee shop?
- logfromblammo 13y agoUS universities should really ditch the general language requirements and leave it up to the college or department within the college to decide whether it would even be useful. Air traffic controllers and software programmers only need to know English. Business students intending to work for a multinational need at least one more language, and they should be from this list: Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Korean, or Standard Arabic. The vast majority of graduates of US universities who are from the US will never need a second language other than Spanish, and they won't even need to know it all that well.
- oracuk 13y agoI still don't see that dropping the foreign language requirement would immediately lead to an increased take up of programming languages. I don't understand why foreign languages are what should be dropped. If there is limited time for learning and there is no space for programming then any changes should be discussed in light of the full current curriculum. The original post suggested that foreign languages should be dropped in favor of programming languages, there may be other subjects of the curriculum that could be dropped instead, especially if the yardstick of economic value is the measure to be used.