By Jessica Tosti
Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Classics, Italian and Spanish. For a school with an undergraduate population of 20,000 students, UConn offers surprisingly few languages. Once students fulfill the requirement, three years in high school or four semesters at UConn, many believe there is no need to continue learning languages. There is always another engineering, accounting or biology class that takes precedent over the “unnecessary” language courses.
I began learning Dutch at five. I started Spanish at 11. This semester I enrolled in Italian. At this point, languages are an integral part of who I am.
Yet I do understand how language classes can take a back seat to other courses. The decision to take Italian and enroll in 19 credits this semester was not an easy one and it is not something I would recommend to anyone. Language courses take a lot of time and commitment; it is not busy work that can be completed and forgotten.
Hanna Soucie, a sophomore chemical engineering major, decided to stop taking Spanish like she did for three years of high school and embark on a different route: German.
“There’s no easy way to make the transition,” Soucie said. “It’s totally new.”
Beginning a new language starts out as a dream. You go in thinking that it—the accent, the grammar and the verb conjugations—will come easily. Suddenly it is two weeks into the semester and you catch yourself muttering words under your breath because “quattordici” (fourteen) is hard to remember.
The glossy exterior fades and all that’s left is the grit and grime. Putting a simple sentence together is a major accomplishment. Not combining languages is an even bigger feat.
“During conversational German, I shift into what’s comfortable.” Soucie said.
It’s no longer Spanglish, Germanglish or Italianglish. Now it’s Span-Germanglish or Dutch-Italian-Spanglish. More and more languages get stirred into the cocktail and deciphering what’s-what in the mixture becomes more challenging every day. Now instead of a table just being “the table”, it is also “de tafel” or “la mesa” or “il tavolo” or “der Tisch”.
And in such short lectures, only 50 minutes, getting accustomed to the new language becomes a new struggle.
“It’s hard to reach everything,” Soucie said. The professors try to include everyone, but in a class of 15 people, that still means everyone gets only about three minutes or fewer of speaking time.
Despite all of these setbacks, people continue to put themselves in these stressful situations willingly—why?
Languages provide a much-needed break from pouring over math and science for hours at a time. In between chapters of Organic Chemistry or Calc II, languages act as an artistic outlet. Just because they are art, however, does not mean that languages do not apply to the real world or the esteemed engineering degree.
The EUROTECH program offers engineers the possibility to get a bachelor’s degree in engineering and one in German Studies. According to the EUROTECH UConn page, the international market these days longs for people who can “interface with other cultures.”
Although Soucie is not in the EUROTECH program, she admits that it opened her eyes to the legitimacy of her passion for languages.
“It’s not just a requirement for me anymore. It balances stress. It’s a counterweight. But also it’s integrated into the engineering marketplace,” she said.
An Economist article published in March 2014 revealed that Spanish is worth $51,000 over a lifetime, French $77,000 and German $128,000.
So although it may seem like devoting all 15 to 20 credits a year exclusively to a “marketable” degree is the way to go, ultimately the years spent pouring over complex grammatical structures will lead to a big pay off.
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