I do believe that the current editor of The New Yorker majored in Russian.

This interview with a professor may offer you insight into the classroom experience of Russian studies students:

https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/faculty-jason-cieply-russian-studies

As one interesting comment, the professor finds the snowy winter climate of the Northeast to be more suitable to the reading of Russian literature than that of the palm-tree environment of his previous school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's the major of a trust fund kid. There is virtually no opportunity for employment in the field.

Slight exaggeration, but not far off.

There are jobs in the government and at government contractors. I do not know for sure, but I hear claims that most such jobs require a painful lifestyle polygraph. Linguist jobs are not usually the top of the pay scale. Russian is much less in demand now than in the 1979s and 1980s.

More in demand languages today are Chinese (Cantonese, Hokkien, and other regional dialects have even less supply than Mandarin), Urdu, Pashto, and Farsi.

This is like somebody who thinks highly of themselves because they read one article or they themselves are from mainland China. You have such a distorted view of the world. Ignorant people don’t even deserve a response.

Indiana University's Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures is very well renowned. I highly recommend poking around their website and reading up on them. It's a pathway (or was recently) to government jobs.

I studied Russian from a much less renowned place and spent a lot of time in Russia studying, teaching English, and having an absolutely amazing time, but not getting a job with an NGO because in the mid 90s jobs that used to be expat were (as it should be) going to Russians. I didn't try for government jobs. A friend who got his PhD in Russian created a website advising people with advanced Russian degrees on how to get their CNE and become Novell network engineers. (Probably should have been Microsoft.) But that was how popular Russian was back then. I hope it's changed in the last thirty years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's the major of a trust fund kid. There is virtually no opportunity for employment in the field.

Slight exaggeration, but not far off.

There are jobs in the government and at government contractors. I do not know for sure, but I hear claims that most such jobs require a painful lifestyle polygraph. Linguist jobs are not usually the top of the pay scale. Russian is much less in demand now than in the 1979s and 1980s.

More in demand languages today are Chinese (Cantonese, Hokkien, and other regional dialects have even less supply than Mandarin), Urdu, Pashto, and Farsi.

Russian is still very much a Critical Language that is definitely in demand.

https://onsa.asu.edu/scholarship/critical-languages-scholarship
https://clscholarship.org/news/2024/apply-for-the-2025-cls-program

Anonymous wrote:That's the major of a trust fund kid. There is virtually no opportunity for employment in the field.

Slight exaggeration, but not far off.

There are jobs in the government and at government contractors. I do not know for sure, but I hear claims that most such jobs require a painful lifestyle polygraph. Linguist jobs are not usually the top of the pay scale. Russian is much less in demand now than in the 1979s and 1980s.

More in demand languages today are Chinese (Cantonese, Hokkien, and other regional dialects have even less supply than Mandarin), Urdu, Pashto, and Farsi.

I was A Russian major at Amherst which historically had a really great Russian program. (Bizarrely lots of connections with the dissident community in the Soviet Union drew in a lot of significant Russian scholars -‘d some significant donations of records, papers and art). I would think it’s still probably a very good department. One of my friends is a Slavicist at a major university.

For years there was not great employment in Russian—it was an important field during the Cold War and had in the immediate aftermath of the SU collapse but then became less desirable as Arabic and Chinese gained importantce for both business and geopolitical reasons. I think with the changing global situation it may become more important again. I guess we’ll see.

My biggest disappointment about studying Russian is that there’s just not a lot of good TV or movies to watch in Russian so it’s hard to keep it up. I find reading in Cyrillic really exhausting.

Indiana had a great Russia program. maybe still do

I know a few people who studied in the former Russian republics through Middlebury’s program 30-40 years ago.

PP here - forgot to mention he studied Russian in high school as well. Would like to work within the IC post grad.

My nephew is a Russian major at Virginia Tech. Very challenging program with lots of opportunities.

https://www.vt.edu/academics/majors/russian.html

Anonymous wrote:That's the major of a trust fund kid. There is virtually no opportunity for employment in the field.

This is the comment of someone who is beyond ignorant. Good grief.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone’s kid Russian studies major?
What type of activities did they have in high school? Besides obviously taking Russian and being interested in Russian literature. Also Russian geopolitics.

And what college?

Either you are a troll or just dumb

This is a terrible major right now.

I hate stupid people. Like you.

Anonymous wrote:Its not feasible in Russia but they can go to Belarus, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan Ukraine, Moldova, Tajikistan, or Turkmenistan.

💯

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone’s kid Russian studies major?
What type of activities did they have in high school? Besides obviously taking Russian and being interested in Russian literature. Also Russian geopolitics.

And what college?

Either you are a troll or just dumb

This is a terrible major right now.

Why? We don't need ambassadors, intelligence, interpreters, business majors for Russia or Russian speaking countries?