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[quote=Anonymous]I did a BA in Russian language and literature at Pitt in the late '80s (including summer Russian for year 2 level at Pitt's summer language institute). And an MA in Russian area studies from Georgetown in the mid '90s. As an undergrad I studied in the then Soviet Union for one semester, and as a grad I studied in Russia for an academic year.

Russian is an amazing language, and it was great fun to study it at that time. I was quite advanced when I finished my studies.

(On a martial arts forum I once read a description of a black belt as "a license to start learning karate." I think of a BA in Russian similarly. That's the point in knowledge where Russian really starts to get interesting.)

My experience with starting a career in the mid '90s matches what 22:08 poster wrote about the market being flooded with Russians. I was on the tail end of a demographic wave of Americans studying Russian. I wasn't interested in the intelligence community or academia. I bopped back and forth between DMV and Russia, trying to get a career going, without great success. Worked briefly on development assistance programs. Floundered around a bit.

I decided to take up computer programming and studied on my own. Eventually landed my first programming job (moved away from DMV) and have been working as a programmer for 25+ years. (Before anyone asks -- I love programming as my day-to-day work and have intentionally not pursued management.)

I haven't been back to Russia since 2000.

Russian study programs right now seem to be taking place mostly in Estonia and Kazakhstan.[/quote]

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