Kid has niche interest (German). How can I tell what colleges are looking for him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one cares about German. If it was Russian or Chinese or Arabic he'd have interest.

False. The older approach of colleges and universities was to offer the triad of French, German, and Spanish. Spanish was required because that it was considered to be of daily use in America and even more true today with population shift. French and German were required because original research was often done in those languages -which is exactly what my DC is doing now for his DPhil research at Oxford

Colleges today like to pride themselves on creating citizens of the world who will be working with people of many countries, Hence UVA offers something like 60 languages

But if you only want a language for business use and employment then, yes, i would go with Chinese, Russian, etc.

[Anonymous]

Germanic doesn’t just refer to German, it refers to the Germanic language family, which includes English, Dutch, Afrikaans and Scandinavian languages. Linguistics is different than a language program, although some language departments offer linguistics classes.

Schools with strong linguistics programs include Penn, PSU, Georgetown, Indiana University, university of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and University of California Santa Barbara.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lyle Lovett majored in German at Texas A&M University, graduating in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He also studied journalism. Not music, though.

Okay (???)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP is asking about linguistics departments, which are usually more rigorous than learning a language for fulfilling core requirements.

With that said, it depends what your kid wants to do, such as general or applied, computational/machine learning, or cognitive science. There are avenues for any language in future linguistics research in grad school but not sure how less popular European languages work other than what PPs have said about majoring in a language, which seems very limiting without a second major/minor, unless you want to go the grad school route anyway.

Do you know what linguistics is?

It has nothing to do with studying a specific language (like German, which is what OP posted about).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one cares about German. If it was Russian or Chinese or Arabic he'd have interest.

False. The older approach of colleges and universities was to offer the triad of French, German, and Spanish. Spanish was required because that it was considered to be of daily use in America and even more true today with population shift. French and German were required because original research was often done in those languages -which is exactly what my DC is doing now for his DPhil research at Oxford

Colleges today like to pride themselves on creating citizens of the world who will be working with people of many countries, Hence UVA offers something like 60 languages

But if you only want a language for business use and employment then, yes, i would go with Chinese, Russian, etc.

But the kid likes GERMAN.

College is not vocational school. He is not going to change what he is interested in because you think they lead to more jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think OP is asking what schools have good German departments. you can google that.

They're asking how to find out what's going on in individual departments at various high (I'm assuming) colleges.

I think there is a site that has number of graduates per major. I dont know how you'd line that up with size of department beyond googling faculty

Hopkins has a German department, but they are more invested in Neo-Marxist / deconstructionism than the language.

[Anonymous]

I still dont think OP was asking who has a German dept

she was asking if it might be a hook at some places over others and how do you find out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one cares about German. If it was Russian or Chinese or Arabic he'd have interest.

False. The older approach of colleges and universities was to offer the triad of French, German, and Spanish. Spanish was required because that it was considered to be of daily use in America and even more true today with population shift. French and German were required because original research was often done in those languages -which is exactly what my DC is doing now for his DPhil research at Oxford

Colleges today like to pride themselves on creating citizens of the world who will be working with people of many countries, Hence UVA offers something like 60 languages

But if you only want a language for business use and employment then, yes, i would go with Chinese, Russian, etc.

Actually it is for international espionage not business. Catch up, lady.

[Anonymous]

Middlebury
Concordia Univ
Cornell has long standing solid program
Georgetown has impressive linguistic program
UT Austin and Alabama have strong linguistics in particular
MIT has strong linguistics

[Anonymous]

Brown-good German studies dept

—curriculum combines intensive study of the German language with an interdisciplinary approach to German culture. These opportunities prepare our students to understand both changing approaches to cultural studies as well as the changes in European and world affairs that will affect our ways of life in the next century.—

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if it’s a hook. That’s a great question. Maybe look at professor list and see if you can see applicants via major accepted. Also if seriously interested reach out for interview with German dept chair. Ask to meet them on tour.

[Anonymous]

Check out WSJ article — these research indicators may help when you look at schools of interest:

“But through a combination of information on faculty hiring, information on the ratios of department faculty to students, admissions rates by major…we’re able to provide good counsel.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the OP is asking about linguistics departments, which are usually more rigorous than learning a language for fulfilling core requirements.

With that said, it depends what your kid wants to do, such as general or applied, computational/machine learning, or cognitive science. There are avenues for any language in future linguistics research in grad school but not sure how less popular European languages work other than what PPs have said about majoring in a language, which seems very limiting without a second major/minor, unless you want to go the grad school route anyway.

Yes, please don't confuse simply knowing another language, and being a linguistics expert. Not at all the same caliber of mind.

My kids are trilingual, I don't think it's a big deal. They took, or will take, APs in their languages, but have no interest in linguistics.
For them, it's just another "nice to have" box to check.

OP, you need to research linguistics majors. Everyone is dying for anything that can be associated to machine learning. So computational linguistics is probably a sought-after field. Your kid should learn Python and talk about computational linguistics in one of their essays.

[Anonymous]

I dont know why I started laughing halfway through this tread and never stopped.

[Anonymous]

Northwestern has a German business program.
Not nearly in the same league BUT Elon has a special German business program -- you graduate with a degree from Elon and University of Heidelberg. Lots of internship opportunities involved etc.