Learn a new language—it’s a win-win
Take a language course in college. Truly, it's a win-win situation. The ease of study and interesting material--for us globally-minded individuals--makes it an extremely attractive option to fill those last 3-4 credits hours needed to fill in the semester schedule. In fact, most universities require at least one course in language study in order to graduate. Here are some great reasons to register for some language next semester or sometime down the line in college!
First, it's a great way to engage with international students currently studying here in the US. Develop a friendship using their native language and impress others with your ability to flawlessly use a few set phrases in everyday conversation. It's fun and useful.
Second, it's a great lifelong skill to possess if you choose to start learning and speaking a new language, and continue to improve your skillset. Learning Chinese or Arabic, even though they are significantly more demanding content-wise and time-wise, are obviously beneficial in today's world, especially for those seeking jobs in international business or government. Fluency in these languages takes at least 3x longer than other, more western langauges.
Third, it broadens your view of the world around you. By taking a language course, you are not only learning how to speak, but also about history, politics, and culture. It cultivates and fuels a desire to learn more about the host country(s) of your language and gives you (one more) reason to plan a future trip. Learning a new language is one of the BEST ways to expand your knowledge of the world and one of the first steps to obtaining global citizen status.
Below are some numbers on how difficult, and beneficial the most popular languages taught today are ranked. These are not to say that a 10 ease of learning is a piece of cake to learn, simply that as a native English speaker, some languages will come easier to Americans than others. For instance, to a Japanese speaker, learning Chinese would come easier than learning Portuguese, so on and so forth.
German: 5 ease of learning, 2 employment enhancement
Chinese: 1 ease of learning, 10 employment enhancement
French: 6 ease of learning, 1 employment enhancement
Russian: 4 ease of learning, 8 employment enhancement
Spanish: 10 ease of learning, 8 employment enhancement
Numbers thanks to Dr. Ali Binazir in his Huffington Post article.
Posted Monday, September 19, 2011