Benefits
Did you know studying a language in college doesn’t mean that you must be a language major? Language skills complement any subject matter and give graduates a competitive advantage across all job sectors. Learn the benefits of languages and see how they can enrich your undergraduate experience.
Benefits of Global Engagement & Critical Languages
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Amplify Your Studies-Languages are a fantastic compliment to all areas of study, and many language departments are even developing courses that integrate functional use of languages into other disciplines such as business, health, engineering, and social services so that students are better prepared to apply language skills in their future careers.
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Start Early, Stay Long- Completing a long, uninterrupted sequence of instruction is the ideal way to become proficient in another language. If you’ve studied languages in the past, college is the ideal time to strengthen (or expand upon) those skills—your brain is already programmed to make additional languages easier to pick up. New to languages? It’s definitely not too late to get started now, either!
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Boost Your Career Prospects-Language skills offer job candidates a serious competitive edge over their monolingual peers, and are among the top eight skills required of all occupations—no matter the sector or skill level. Knowing another language exponentially broadens the range of potential career paths you can follow—in everything from the tech sector, law enforcement, business, engineering, health care, national security, finance, sports and beyond.
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Serve Your Country-The U.S. Military, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and NSA all have a huge demand for language skills, with many offering scholarships for language students who want to pursue a career in government.
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Seize Travel and Study Abroad Opportunities-Why wait for graduation to take the world by storm? The study and intern abroad destinations—and associated scholarships—open to students with language skills vastly outnumber English-only programs. Language students are in a position to take advantage of any and all opportunities as they arise: The world is their oyster!
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Stand Out from the Crowd -Despite the big (and unmet) demand for language skills, only a small percentage of U.S. students enroll in university language classes and even fewer learn less commonly taught languages (LCTL)—those deemed critical to U.S. national security, such as Arabic, Russian, Korean, Urdu, Turkish, and Somali, just to name a few. When combined with knowledge of and skills in another professional area, proficiency in these languages really does make you stand out.
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Feed Your Brain-Research shows that bilinguals have better critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as improved memory, concentration, and mental flexibility. And what college student couldn’t benefit from that?!
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Make Friends and Build Community-Arriving as a new student on campus can be intimidating and language programs are a great way to quickly connect with like-minded peers, with many offering smaller class sizes, extracurricular activities, or even language-specific dining tables or dormitories.
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Become a More Empathetic and Thoughtful Person-Speaking another language is the most direct link to another culture—including its history, politics, and current events. It allows you to gain cultural understanding and deep insights into how other people see the world and globally significant issues. That kind of perspective is an amazing asset to have both professionally and personally.