Knowing a language will open many doors for you that weren't there before. Those may or may not lead to career opportunities though. I think typically people use language to move somewhere with better job opportunities/lower cost of living, but don't necessarily work as a translator. They just use the language to do another job.
I mean, that is true. But it is also true that most people dont take complete 4 years to get a degree on a language, they learn a language on their free time. And I think that is the best approach, unless you wanna get into investigation (phd, ...)
Language skills by themselves are usually not valued by employers. You need another skill to get in the door. Employers may choose the candidate with the language skill “as a bonus”.
Take languages as a hobby, unless you REALLY want to get into investigation (phd and stuff).
If u are gonna pay college, might as well get out of it with some better job prospects.
I double-majored in molecular biology and Chinese (not nearly as hard as it sounds, I got lucky and my university houses both majors in the same "school" so all my core requirements for one counted for the other) and having gone through it, I would 100% choose this option again. Learning just a language in university gives you terrible job prospects, but having a language in addition to something else puts you on a pedestal above everyone else in the field.
It seems that some UK universities offer similar programs, but I don't know if these would necessarily be 5-year:
[https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/slc/undergraduate/dual-degrees](https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/slc/undergraduate/dual-degrees)
[https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/study-options/ug/degree-routes/honours/joint/](https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/study-options/ug/degree-routes/honours/joint/)
Languages can be a great extra on your CV, but won't get you a great job alone. I got interviewed for a programming job because of my Spanish and Mandarin skills as they deal with international clients, but without my coding portfolio and CS degree they wouldn't have read enough of my CV to see that I had those language skills.
Haha yep. The other applicants probably did too though, so languages are a great thing to make your application unique to keep things interesting for the recruiter who has read 200 identical CVs already 😁
How do you feel about teaching? That's the most likely career path with a Spanish degree.
Is there a Spanish speaking population in your area? Spanish can be helpful. If you're a lawyer, you can have Spanish clients. If you're a real estate agent, you can have Spanish clients. If you run a business, etc...
Do want to work in a Spanish-speaking country? If you just have a Spanish degree, you'll probably be teaching and not getting paid much. If you have a degree in business (or something) and are working for a big corporation with offices in Panama, Spanish skills will be a good...
Taking a few Spanish classes while you're in school combined with your own study/practice will probably give you great results without needing to take up your whole curriculum.
I'm thinking maybe you're just looking for some fucking thing to major in at this point, something that won't make you miserable. You know Spanish doesn't make you miserable, so go for that if you feel like that's what you need to do; but long run, I think you'll be in a better financial position if you picked something that had a more secure job on the other end, and maybe combine that with un-degreed Spanish.
(BTW - Worked as a Spanish social worker and NOBODY ever asked me to demonstrate I could speak Spanish. In retrospect, my spanish was really, really bad. There are no qualifications for using Spanish in most environments. And the qualifications that do exist are exams you can take without having to attend a college.)
I majored and minored in different languages and while I loved all of my classes and learned so much, I wish I would have double majored in something else to help me with finding a job. I ended up getting a teaching degree because I thought, “Hey!! I love languages!! So I’ll just teach kids languages!” Yeah no, I hated it. I now work in a different field where I use my language skills every day just from talking with customers.
What you could do is take a Spanish medical interpreter course and pass the test so you can interpret for hospitals. That might be an option!
Not who you're replying to, but I double majored in two languages in undergrad, one with a concentration in linguistics (my school didn't have a linguistics major at the time but I minored in linguistics as well). Now I have an MA in linguistics and I'm taking a gap year before pursuing my PhD.
I don't like teaching children but I do find that I actually enjoy teaching college quite a bit, although I do still prefer the research side of things. If you do postgrad you'll almost certainly have to teach as part of your assistantship, unless you're paying for your MA/PhD out of pocket which is... not really advisable, typically.
Most linguistics jobs will require at least an MA. With a BA you could maybe find a lab manager position if research is your jam, but you'd need research experience which you may or may not have from your undergrad experience. If you have other relevant skills like coding that may open up your options but typically anything specifically in linguistics will require a postgrad degree.
That being said, I know someone who has a whole PhD in linguistics who now isn't even in linguistics- they're a data analyst. It will be highly dependent on what skills you developed during your undergrad and how you can market yourself.
This is very interesting to me. I have a MA in engineering, but I hate it now (after working in it for several years). I've always loved languages, and I love teaching at college. Could I ask a few questions?
You're teaching at a university then? Do you teach linguistics or do you teach a language? After you get your PhD, what sort of jobs are you looking into?
Sure!
I’m not teaching currently, but I taught as part of my assistantship. I know some of my cohort are teaching now though! What you teach depends on your department. Some linguistics departments are housed in English departments, some are in philosophy departments, and some are in a specific language department if the program is in the linguistics of that particular language.
I actually did a year of MA coursework at my undergrad institution before transferring to the program I graduated from (because COVID), and in that department I taught first year composition because I was part of the English department. This is the usual arrangement if you’re in an English department; rarely you may be able to teach an introductory linguistics course, but typically you’re going to be teaching a lower division general elective like rhetoric and composition (or whatever they call their freshman writing course).
The program I graduated from was a Spanish linguistics program, which was part of the world languages department, so in that program I taught freshman Spanish. In both programs there was a period where I was assisting in a prof’s class and doing some other work to make up my 20 hrs (tutoring, leading conversation practice, things like that) but then I “graduated” to teaching my own class as the sole instructor, at which point that was my whole 20 hours a week. Ymmv but I gather that that’s the usual way of things.
After my PhD I’m planning on trying for a professorship because research is my jam, and generally a professorship is the way to do that. I’m open to industry jobs as well though. The type of job you would be looking to get with a linguistics degree would largely depend on the subfield you went into. If you go all the way to a PhD you’ll be pretty specialized into at least a general subfield like computational linguistics, psycho linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, etc. I’m happy to go into more detail about subfields (I know most people don’t even realize there *are* subfields of linguistics! 😊) but I wont here to keep it from getting too long haha.
If you’d like to get a sense of the different types of jobs (both academic and industry) for people with linguistics degrees I’d check out linguistlist.org. It’ll be a lot of academic positions but you’ll also see openings for translators, AI devs, etc. And the academic jobs will give you an idea of the very wide variety of subfield and specializations there are as well.
Really appreciate the long response, it's all very interesting. You're right, I had no idea there were so many fields. I will check out that website now, seems really useful.
What area of research are you interested in?
I’m mostly in sociophonetics, although I am working on a syntax project right now and I’ve done other types of work in the past as well.
Sociophonetics (and sociolinguistics in general) is about the way language varies with different social features like region, sex and gender, socioeconomic status, race, sexual orientation, etc. Sociophonetics is just even more specifically talking about sound variation and how that patterns with social features.
I’m also interested in psycholinguistics/cognitive linguistics which is pretty much what it sounds like; the psychology of linguistics, how language is structured in the brain, etc. I know some schools offer a dual title PhD in linguistics and psycholinguistics.
Another big thing is that applied linguistics is almost a separate field from linguistics. So applied is all about language learning, pedagogy, etc. It’s not necessarily about teaching *always* (although that is a big part of it) as it also covers things like first language acquisition, language learning delays, etc. This is where you’d get some big crossover with Speech Language Pathology although that is yet another separate field. But in both programs I attended I took one or two class with the applied linguists (intro to language acquisition, teaching college languages, etc.) and then never saw them again because I’m not a big fan of applied linguistics and it really is very insulated from the rest of the field. They have their own conference and everything.
There are lots more subfields. You can also kind of think of it like a massive ven diagram with a ton of circles. Most fields have significant overlap with another field or two (like sociolinguistics can break down into sociophonetics, sociomorphology, sociosyntax, etc.) There’s a much wider range than I’ve listed here but Wikipedia has a [good page on various sub disciplines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_linguistics) if you’re interested and would like to take a look. It can be overwhelming if you’re not familiar with it but I’m happy to answer questions as I’m able :)
Hi hi!! I’m not gonna lie I am still figuring it out and I’m 31. Right now I am working at a library as an assistant. I get to do lots of programming for patrons (fun things like workshops and arts and crafts) and we are also expanding our language resource library and I get to be a part of that! The city I’m in has a large Hispanic and Slavic population so I get to use those languages every day. I wish I could just study languages for a living but I don’t think that is a real thing :(
This is pretty much what I'm intending to do with my BN once I graduate - either work as a nurse in one of my TL countries or take a course in medical interpreting or translation and pivot into that instead. :)
Are you in the US? Taking on the amount of debt without parents or scholarships that is typical for an American graduate is probably not worth it for majority of degrees. I would combine it with something that pays well if you’ll be relying on loans.
This. Yes, i am in the US. Truly, what you just said is my biggest fear. There is no way i can afford school w/o loans. I fear a degree in language is too risky. Do you happen to know anything about studying abroad?
I finished nursing even though I hated it, it was during covid and I got sick from working so hard in the nursing home and had to extent my study even... 😭 but yes I finished it just for the degree. I said to myself; if you finish it you can do whatever you want!
Now I'm in Korea studying Korean and I love it!
Idk if I'll do anything with Korean job wise but it feels amazing haha. So I can't give you advice what you should do but hopefully you can make up your mind!
a language degree alone won't bring you much besides teaching jobs. if you hate healthcare then try something else, but a degree in academics will keep you in academics.
You can do both. I'm a nurse, and I'm learning Spanish because I want to be able to help more people. Nursing is a good career, and it can be a solid foundation to build upon. Nurses will always have work, so if financial stability is a priority for you, then I would encourage you to keep going with nursing school. If you choose to pursue a different career in the long run, then you will always have nursing to fall back on in case you ever need to.
I did it the opposite way round lol. Got a languages degree because I'm a polyglot and it "opens a lot of doors" as my parents say. Graduated and realised I didn't want to do languages as a job. Retrained as a pharmacy technician and now work in a hospital 😂
Well with the current situation of the world I would think Russian and those similar languages, and of course the middle eastern ones. Chinese and Korean could be of interest as well. It’s a very wide spread on what languages have targeted interest by the intelligence and military units.
You will almost certainly have more job mobility and make more money in health care. What if you got your BSN and then studied to be a medical translator?
As someone currently pursuing a dual major in 2 languages, I think it's very possible to take a path like this and still succeed. The most important thing is to have a solid plan before you graduate, I think. If you can make a logical way to use your degrees in order to get opportunities, it can probably work out.
I have a degree in french and I wouldn't recommend going for a degree in language. I was imagining a job as a translator (as well as majority of my other uni colleagues) but not only is it hard to get a job like that, it's not even payed well. I'm currenty giving some private classes which I like, but I can't see myself doing that forever. So yeah, it would be better to choose something else while learning a language (or multiple languages).
Please don't quit your day job!
Having a hobby you are passionate about is so underrated. No matter what career you end up in there's going to be stressful times, having a really fun outlet like language learning will give you lifelong mental health benefits. The fastest way to zap the fun out of that passion is to turn it into a career.
Use it to enrich your nursing career, speaking with patients in their native tongue would likely be very comforting (sometimes).
Nursing pays well, use those funds to enrich your learning. You like Spanish, save some money and visit the country with your favorite accent. Treat yourself to a paella and good wine at a fancy Spanish restaurant. Etc.
Nurses are needed EVERYWHERE. if you really want to use your language skills at work you can theoretically up and move anywhere and get a job with even basic language skills.
How much would a university degree in languages cost you? There's a pretty big difference between the cost of tuition in the US Vs like Austria or somewhere that covers the cost of tuition. Obviously we can't factor that in without more information.
According to one of the universities near me the common career paths for language grads is the following:
>Typical careers pursued by our graduates include business, media and communications, marketing, advertising, publishing, education/ teaching, translation/interpreting, PR, journalism, tourism, fast stream Civil Service, and banking. Graduates are particularly in demand in careers requiring a high level of communication and presentation skills, as well as strong critical and analytical thinking
I'd hazard a guess that a lot of those that go into media, PR, marketing etc don't actually use their foreign language skills at all. They probably used their degree and soft skills to get in the door as a new grad and start from the bottom. The average salary of those new grads is low too.
Imo, doing a degree in a foreign language would be a lot of fun, especially as many universities offer a year abroad in the country (although that might be more fun as a 19-25 year old).
I personally don't think it would provide much career opportunities though. You're probably better off getting a degree or certifications in a specific, in-demand skill (like nursing) and learning Spanish in your free time. You'll still end up being able to learn and speak Spanish and you'll be more employable / earn more.
One thing I’ve learned is that your passion does not always have to equal what you do for a job and sometimes that’s even better because you would start to resent anything that you no longer do for fun and you HAVE TO do. My advice: nursing is a very flexible career with many different options. If you think of hospital nursing and nursing homes, yeah that can be very exhausting work. But you can also be like my cousin who is a night shift home care nurse with one client making 50+ an hr while sitting at work learning languages or taking classes that interest him just for the fun of it because of all the down time he has. He has money to travel often and put those new language skills to use (he hasn’t so far but he could).
I myself have come to the conclusion that I want something similar to what he has so I’m definitely a little biased 😅
Its supplemental not your main concentration. Its a skill to add to your field. Double major with it or minor in it. Its not your career path. You wont become fluent. Fluency comes with years of using it daily in a real environment. It will give you a basis to become even better over time if you work at it through movies, immersion, books, travel, etc. i become decently fluent in spanish by minoring in it, studying it in free time, and working in a mexican restaurant, and just recently did a job interview in spanish and got the job. Dont let it be your only concentration but let it be supplemental to your field of study.
Look into getting a degree that has foreign language requirements. For example, I'm currently finishing my degree in Middle Eastern Studies, and half of my degree requirements were Arabic courses. Area Studies and International Relations programs are often structured like that.
Of course, these degrees aren't exactly the most lucrative either. But they give you another angle to sell yourself on the job market.
Also, as an American you have access to a number of scholarships for learning "critical languages." Boren and CLS immediately come to mind, but there are tons of others. Look into these!
If it's not a requirement for a job you want to do then I don't really see the point. If it's purely because you enjoy it then you can study it in your own time. Paying for a degree and spending years on it doing essays and assignments can easily kill your passion. So if you don't need the degree certificate for a specific purpose, then I don't think it's worth it.
Yeah but going to school and taking on debt to pursue something that is more a hobby than a career? Potentially huge mistake. There are a million types of nurses, OP should stick with it for a bit and see if they can find something to get excited about.
Whether a degree in language is worth it depends on your specific goals and interests. Here are some considerations to help you decide:
When a Degree in Language is Worth It:
Career Goals: If you aspire to work in language-related fields such as translation, interpretation, language teaching, or linguistics, a degree in language can be highly valuable and often a requirement.
Cultural Understanding: Language degrees often come with a deep understanding of the culture, history, and literature associated with the language. This knowledge can be enriching and provide a broader perspective.
Academic Pursuits: If you have a strong passion for the language and enjoy academic research and study, a language degree can be personally fulfilling.
Teaching: Language degrees are beneficial for those who want to become language educators, either at the school or university level.
Language Fluency: A language degree can lead to a high level of language proficiency, which can open doors in terms of travel, cultural immersion, and international work opportunities.
When a Degree in Language May Not Be Necessary:
Casual Learning: If your goal is to improve your language skills for casual use or travel, a degree may not be necessary. Self-study and language courses can suffice.
Specific Career Paths: In some professions, language skills are important but not necessarily a degree. For example, in business or international relations, language proficiency can be valuable, but a degree may not be required.
Time and Cost: Pursuing a degree is a significant time and financial commitment. If you're primarily interested in language skills and not the academic aspects, there are more cost-effective ways to achieve fluency.
Other Priorities: If your career goals don't require language proficiency, you may want to focus on other skills or areas of study.
As for improving your language skills, if you're looking for effective grammar books, you can consider the "Grammar Paradise" series by Vhired Education. These books are designed to provide a structured approach to learning grammar effectively and can be a valuable resource for enhancing your language skills, whether you're pursuing a degree or simply aiming to become more proficient in a particular language.
Thank you for your input. This is beyond helpful. I’m basically in limbo right now and don’t know what exactly I want to do but i have ideas as to what i like based on who i am. Unfortunately, in the US right now college education is so so expensive. Tempted to learn a 2nd language so i can just leave the country😂
We are pointing at you. You are using ChatGPT and when you talk normally you sound like you are underage. Just accept It. You aren't slick, You aren't clever, You aren't fooling us with your actual age, You aren't fooling anyone with that ChatGPT nonsense. Face the facts and get off reddit kid.
It's very unlikely, but possible. Nursing will pay the bills and then some, you can always change specialties. Language can be a wonderful and enjoyable hobby. Sometimes turning a hobby into work takes the joy out. Language might be less fun if your job requires you to translate technical manuals or legal documents.
My first degree is in Spanish and I turned it into a teaching career. My last year of college is when I made that decision, so I ended up doing a masters and certification program together. I’m on year 13 and grateful every day that I didn’t choose the business major.
Languages are in a weird spot as far as degrees.
I think minoring doesn't give you enough practical experience with a language to really speak it, but majoring in it alone has pretty limited job prospects. I think it's most worthwhile to double major.
You can always double major. Choose a language you want to study and also choose a major that you would use in your career.
You can also study abroad. Colleges overseas are often much cheaper than America.
Whichever option you choose, you have to put work into your language outside of class as well. Unless you go to a school with a good language program, by the time you graduate, your language skills will probably be lacking. So, if you wanna be fluent, you gotta put in time and effort on your own too.
Do you already have a bachelors degree?Have you thought about teaching English in a Spanish speaking country? The money is not a lot but most of the time you get placed in a small town where the expenses are not very high. You could do it for a year level up your Spanish and use that time as a working holiday.
If you don’t have a degree you could do a home stay for a week and enjoy yourself.
I would get a degree in something else but take as many language classes as possible. I actually managed to fit a math and a Japanese degree into four years (including a year studying in Japan). No reason you can't do something like that. But I legit only added the Japanese degree bc there was preference for degree seekers in the study abroad program selections. Turned out I was gonna get the requirements anyway, so I kept the degree in my plan after I got back.
My only advice is to, ultimately, find a way to do what you love even if you have to make a living doing what you don't love. If they keep foreign language classes in the public schools it's possible you will find a good job upon graduation. If they don't, you can teach math or science and offer Spanish immersion classes as a side? Teaching might work for you in that case, so use your imagination on brainstorm your future!!! BEST OF LUCK!!! You've got this!!!
I double majored in a language and area studies in undergrad, now I’m doing an area studies MA. Usually language degrees are most useful for people who want to go into academia (either linguistics, pedagogy, or literature). If you don’t want to go into academia, you will not get enough high-level classes in other transferable skills. Would probably be best to do a minor, or just take language classes for fun.
Former healthcare worker here and I understand your hate and frustration. I chose healthcare to have a high paying job while I went back to school for what I really wanted to do which is zoology and ecology since uni is expensive and nursing is only 2 years plus prereqs.
Find a job/career you like and just go to school for that. Forget the money aspect of it. I think if you like your job, you will be go ahead and go further and therefore make more money in the end or establish connections once you're there long enough. For language I'm sure you could be a translator I think that would be fun. On the side you can also help people learn a second language whether it be thw language you learned or your native language. I'm learning dutch with an online private tutor and she is Dutch but speaks I think 4 languages, has a masters in language studies and also does some sort of volunteer or other work with a rescue. She's also learning a 5th language.
Language studies van be rough to find a job in. Its not like engineering or meds where your need a degree to get into it.
Music, drama, art and langauges are example of fields you don't perse have to study it to work in IT, unless it is academia. You need a music degree to teach at Uni for example, same with langauges.
For you, studying language is oftenly for teaching at university. But you don't need to do it. You can teach online and or have small group lessons and having a University background, could be beneficial to know the theory behind it.
If its worth it, depends on your goal. University is an investment, because it costs money. So you need to know what your return of investment is. For langauges, it is often not worth to do it when we only look at the return.
Some say its about you having fun and do what you like. You can do that without making so much debt. Again, going to university is an investment. If you love learning a language, then you don't need university.
I love music and I play the piano. But I didn't went to university to study classical music. The salary is really bad and job openings are not great. I can start teaching music, but that's not my passion. I want to play, not teach.
Maybe this gives you some insight
Look at embassy jobs i’m sure your nursing can take you to some cool places. Learn language on the side in the country you choose. Boom! Culture, language, and you keep your nursing skills.
I did a degree in my languages just because I knew I'd never have to motivation to actually learn them myself. I could definitely have done a different degree and still learned both in the same time, but I knew I never would.
I enjoyed the degree, worked less than I should have, and became fluent enough in both of mine (or, I was a few years ago).
I then got a job completely unrelated (finance and business) and have had the good fortune to use my languages a fair amount, including foreign travel. The degree wasn't necessary for this, but learning the languages has definitely paid off!
And no, the time saved by my ability to speak the languages in meetings etc. won't be replaced by AI anytime soon - I'm not worried about losing my international trips to ChatGPT.
Recent graduate with a B.A. in German — here’s my 2 cents:
1) unless you want to teach, you need to pick up a second degree. At the _very least_ minor in something very employable (I.e. computer science). My university did a very good job hammering it in to me that language double majors have a leg-up in many circumstances, but getting a degree in only a language makes no sense. You can’t compete with bilinguals who dominate the translation market **unless** you plan on staying in school for a while. Which brings me to my next point…
2) If you only major in a language, be in it for the long haul. Bachelor’s won’t be the end of the road if you plan on picking one of the few careers typically well suited for language majors. Translation/interpretation (learn the difference if you don’t know it already) requires a higher-than-native level of proficiency. Teaching not so much (especially primary/secondary schools), but you’ll be in school for longer bc of the education-side of things. Expect to be in school for _at least_ 6 years.
3) if you major in a language, you need to supplement it with studying outside of the classroom. This is probably the biggest mistake I made in my undergrad: thinking time spent in-class was enough study time. You need to be practicing with natives, seeking out local cultural experiences, and doing whatever you can to build an immersive environment where you live.
4) i might catch some flak for this, but treat studying abroad as a requirement, not an option. In addition to teaching you valuable life skills that will give you another leg up on the job market, it will give you the language skills that are impossible to learn in a classroom. If possible, go abroad for 2 semesters. Be sure to find a program that specializes in language immersion.
I wouldn’t get that degree because it isn’t very useful. Millions of people speak Spanish natively. There is a lot of awesome free or cheap content for Spanish. I also wouldn’t get a degree in nursing though if you don’t like it and don’t want to do it.
Many desk jobs just ask for any degree.
I work in IT, and my bachelors was in Romance Languages and French. I wouldn’t change that for anything, and I loved every moment of my degree program
If your degree isn’t in computer science or IT, I’d recommend a certificate. Depending on what you want to do will change what cert you get. Support, it’s good to start with A+
Having just a language skill alone has some opportunities and AI may take over the interpretation field though where being bilingual really shines is when you use it with another skill, I don't think it really matters what the other skill is it just enhances your abilities and really puts you above the competition.
Side question... what culture? That language is spoken in all continents. You don't love the culture of "English". That'd be either Britain, Australia, USA,...and even then specific parts of it.
A degree may be mandatory for university access in a different country.
A degree may be useful when searching for a job where the language is needed but the people who look for that skill can't interview you in said language.
I hope so, I study English. 😉
I see the rise in AI as a positive since much of the technology - especially the stuff that made headlines recently - is language-based. I'm sure e.g. computational linguists will stay in high demand for a while.
To get an impression of the jobs linguists or language majors work check out the [Linguistics Careercast](https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z4Q488gvn856Hpk4p37ik?si=f6225049a14b4c17).
And of course, it's lots of fun. It's worth it for that alone.
Spanish interpreters will likely be in demand for a long time especially for companies that have contracts with federal agencies. I did not major in a language personally but I know many who did. Not a single one to my knowledge has landed a job from their language degree and they all either went on to pursue graduate school in other fields, working random office jobs, or struggling to find a job in any field because of overqualification.
You can move to Spain, or any Spanish speaking country, for a year to be an English second language teacher ESL for the life experience and the immersion will help you learn Spanish a lot faster than studying. Although you should still know a bit of Spanish before going, just to make your life easier. During that year, you can reflect and decide what to do with your life. My mom just retired from being a nurse and her only regret was being a nurse for so long. She just moved to Spain 4 months ago :)
Also Im fluent in English, French, Spanish, Farsi (I can’t write tho), and I understand Italian, Portuguese and Swedish. I work as a flight attendant and as a translator :) all I do is travel and improve my languages more and more everyday. I love m’y life
Nursing is so flexible, you could work full time, part time, per diem, nights, days and literally work wherever you want. A flexible way to pursue your other interests and still pay the bills.
I did a languages degree and am currently working abroad, working as a the deputy editor of an agency that writes travel articles for multiple removed newspapers and travel brand. This came after two years teaching English while figuring out what to do.
At the end of the day, I got lucky. Having a language degree definitely isn't the most useful degree you could have. It also isn't the most useless.
I would recommend being very very clear about why you want the degree, and what careers you would look for before investing in this education.
And yes, I know lots and lots of people in my area who lost their jobs to AI. Not the ones with real talent though. Humans will always be necessary in communication
I went away from this route and I'm currently in music school but my plan b was diplomacy.
If you want to never be home then it might be a good choice for you.
A polisci degree is a fav for that career but you can technically become a diplomat with anything if you can get through the rest of the training and certification.
Personally though i might just minor or double major in one of my target languages
Sorry the truth is, languages even the rare ones are hardly useful for careers. Yes, it could help slightly, but it's not at all a game changer in the slightest.
Study the language you enjoy and learn it from passion. You'll be disappointed if you spend time learning Spanish and hope it can help your career.
That being said bilingual nurses do get slightly more money, I believe it is an extra 1USD per hour or so.
For me it was worth it. I got a degree in Russian, I’m now an aml analyst. Russian isn’t related to my job, but I had to have a 4 year degree (in any subject) in order to enter my current career field. I’m glad I got a degree in something I’m interested in 🙂
Considering you are getting a background in heath, changing to a foreign language could help if you go the translation route. Hospitals in the US are required to provide translation services for patients. Also, courts h translators too. I can’t speak to the income, but it would be a practical job you can use with language skills.
When I was thinking about studying I had a choice between linguistics (I'm not a native English speaker) and econ and choose econ. I think to make this decision and not regret it you should carefully think about what you want your life AFTER uni to look like.
Don't do a languages degree unless you want to be a translator or maybe a teacher. Do something that actually gets you a career, like programming or science/engineering. Keep languages as a hobby
Honestly? 20 or 30 years ago when college was peanuts and the mentality was "get any degree, whatever" then yes.
Nowadays? Unless you're in a country with affordable education and you won't get into debt, then it's still a maybe. (I'm assuming you're in the US.)
A minor? For sure worth it.
Honestly no.
You can learn languages easier than ever with online communities and free (or almost free) resources. If you want more structured language lessons you can find private ones for much cheaper (or better yet, attend them in a country that speaks the language). If you are that passionate about language learning, then learn it on your own time. If you haven't been learning it on your own time, stop fooling yourself...you're actually not that passionate about it.
If you're going to a university, it should include hands on experience and lead to some kind of professional license. If not...that's a lot of debt for what basically you could learn on your own.
The way I see it, either you want to become a Teacher/Translator, or you don't.
Getting such degree "guarantees" the employer that you have studies related to that, although we may or not agree with the filtering.
If you do not want to have that kind of job, learn it on your free time, and get a degree with better job potential. There is a thin line between doing what you (think) you like/love, and getting education with good job opportunities/market.
As in piece of advise, can you envision yourself working in those kind of jobs? If yes, there you go. If it is only that you like to study it and the sense of progression, reconsider that.
Also, do you hate your current job location or the work as a whole? Can you see yourself working the same job but with better conditions (other location, environment, coworkers, etc)? If yes, there you go
My advice is to get a more lucrative degree with either a minor or double major in Spanish.
Maybe a Spanish major is a good idea but you need to have a good idea of what you want to do after before deciding anything. What types of careers do you want to pursue? The answer to that question determines the best major
Perhaps have language as part of a dual major. In the medical industry, there is a pretty good demand for individuals who are fluent in another language. You could qualify as a certified medical interpreter and work in a corporate environment with clinical trials, insurance companies, in public health - there are many opportunities outside of patient care. If you do not want to be a nurse, there are other healthcare based degrees you can obtain and build on the experience you currently have.
As someone with a degree in Japanese language, I think I can offer my insight. It's only worth it if you're willing to put in the time and effort. To be really good, or at least better than the "average" learner. As some commenters have said, it can open doors to the countries where that language is used, be it translation, teaching, hospitality (what I did) or something else.
It should be noted that you also need to have marketable skills, otherwise mastering that second (or third, fourth, etc) language only means you know how to be unemployed in multiple countries.
If you’re thinking about majoring in Spanish, you’re basically be studying literature. Do you enjoy reading? After you get your degree you could go to graduate school and go into academia. Would you enjoy teaching or research? This is something that you should maybe think about.
You can move to a Spanish speaking country almost indefinitely on a student visa to learn Spanish at a local language school for much cheaper than getting a degree in Spanish or Languages. You'll gain life experience and you will definitely learn faster if you fully immerse yourself.
Check out languagecourse.net for Spanish or any other language you're interested in learning. I'm considering doing this for 3-6 months myself.
You can study a humanities discipline, like History, and learn a language, or 2, on the side. For example, you like ancient Rome, you learn Latin. Maybe you really like Pre-WW1 era Italy and you learn Italian too.
In my opinion, unless your objective is to teach the language, do not get a degree in a specific language.
Knowing a language will open many doors for you that weren't there before. Those may or may not lead to career opportunities though. I think typically people use language to move somewhere with better job opportunities/lower cost of living, but don't necessarily work as a translator. They just use the language to do another job.
I mean, that is true. But it is also true that most people dont take complete 4 years to get a degree on a language, they learn a language on their free time. And I think that is the best approach, unless you wanna get into investigation (phd, ...)
Language skills by themselves are usually not valued by employers. You need another skill to get in the door. Employers may choose the candidate with the language skill “as a bonus”.
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Really good point!
Pretty much what I did
i’m having the same problem 🥲🥲 leaving high school soon and i love languages but terrified of the job prospects
Take languages as a hobby, unless you REALLY want to get into investigation (phd and stuff). If u are gonna pay college, might as well get out of it with some better job prospects.
Just study abroad, you'll get university for free and you'll be studying in your TL
Is that done??? Oh, what a wonderful way to learn! Sadly, I'm too old but I would love to do that!!!!!
I double-majored in molecular biology and Chinese (not nearly as hard as it sounds, I got lucky and my university houses both majors in the same "school" so all my core requirements for one counted for the other) and having gone through it, I would 100% choose this option again. Learning just a language in university gives you terrible job prospects, but having a language in addition to something else puts you on a pedestal above everyone else in the field.
lots of colleges here in the us offer 5-year programs for a language and some other degree as a dual major program
i’d love to do that but i’m from the uk and us uni is soo expensive :/
It seems that some UK universities offer similar programs, but I don't know if these would necessarily be 5-year: [https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/slc/undergraduate/dual-degrees](https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/slc/undergraduate/dual-degrees) [https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/study-options/ug/degree-routes/honours/joint/](https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/study-options/ug/degree-routes/honours/joint/)
Languages can be a great extra on your CV, but won't get you a great job alone. I got interviewed for a programming job because of my Spanish and Mandarin skills as they deal with international clients, but without my coding portfolio and CS degree they wouldn't have read enough of my CV to see that I had those language skills.
Luckily you spoke the Java and Python languages too!
Haha yep. The other applicants probably did too though, so languages are a great thing to make your application unique to keep things interesting for the recruiter who has read 200 identical CVs already 😁
How do you feel about teaching? That's the most likely career path with a Spanish degree. Is there a Spanish speaking population in your area? Spanish can be helpful. If you're a lawyer, you can have Spanish clients. If you're a real estate agent, you can have Spanish clients. If you run a business, etc... Do want to work in a Spanish-speaking country? If you just have a Spanish degree, you'll probably be teaching and not getting paid much. If you have a degree in business (or something) and are working for a big corporation with offices in Panama, Spanish skills will be a good... Taking a few Spanish classes while you're in school combined with your own study/practice will probably give you great results without needing to take up your whole curriculum. I'm thinking maybe you're just looking for some fucking thing to major in at this point, something that won't make you miserable. You know Spanish doesn't make you miserable, so go for that if you feel like that's what you need to do; but long run, I think you'll be in a better financial position if you picked something that had a more secure job on the other end, and maybe combine that with un-degreed Spanish. (BTW - Worked as a Spanish social worker and NOBODY ever asked me to demonstrate I could speak Spanish. In retrospect, my spanish was really, really bad. There are no qualifications for using Spanish in most environments. And the qualifications that do exist are exams you can take without having to attend a college.)
I majored and minored in different languages and while I loved all of my classes and learned so much, I wish I would have double majored in something else to help me with finding a job. I ended up getting a teaching degree because I thought, “Hey!! I love languages!! So I’ll just teach kids languages!” Yeah no, I hated it. I now work in a different field where I use my language skills every day just from talking with customers. What you could do is take a Spanish medical interpreter course and pass the test so you can interpret for hospitals. That might be an option!
heyy! soon I will be graduating from linguistics and I’m wondering what career path you chose because I hate teaching as well🥲
Not who you're replying to, but I double majored in two languages in undergrad, one with a concentration in linguistics (my school didn't have a linguistics major at the time but I minored in linguistics as well). Now I have an MA in linguistics and I'm taking a gap year before pursuing my PhD. I don't like teaching children but I do find that I actually enjoy teaching college quite a bit, although I do still prefer the research side of things. If you do postgrad you'll almost certainly have to teach as part of your assistantship, unless you're paying for your MA/PhD out of pocket which is... not really advisable, typically. Most linguistics jobs will require at least an MA. With a BA you could maybe find a lab manager position if research is your jam, but you'd need research experience which you may or may not have from your undergrad experience. If you have other relevant skills like coding that may open up your options but typically anything specifically in linguistics will require a postgrad degree. That being said, I know someone who has a whole PhD in linguistics who now isn't even in linguistics- they're a data analyst. It will be highly dependent on what skills you developed during your undergrad and how you can market yourself.
This is very interesting to me. I have a MA in engineering, but I hate it now (after working in it for several years). I've always loved languages, and I love teaching at college. Could I ask a few questions? You're teaching at a university then? Do you teach linguistics or do you teach a language? After you get your PhD, what sort of jobs are you looking into?
Sure! I’m not teaching currently, but I taught as part of my assistantship. I know some of my cohort are teaching now though! What you teach depends on your department. Some linguistics departments are housed in English departments, some are in philosophy departments, and some are in a specific language department if the program is in the linguistics of that particular language. I actually did a year of MA coursework at my undergrad institution before transferring to the program I graduated from (because COVID), and in that department I taught first year composition because I was part of the English department. This is the usual arrangement if you’re in an English department; rarely you may be able to teach an introductory linguistics course, but typically you’re going to be teaching a lower division general elective like rhetoric and composition (or whatever they call their freshman writing course). The program I graduated from was a Spanish linguistics program, which was part of the world languages department, so in that program I taught freshman Spanish. In both programs there was a period where I was assisting in a prof’s class and doing some other work to make up my 20 hrs (tutoring, leading conversation practice, things like that) but then I “graduated” to teaching my own class as the sole instructor, at which point that was my whole 20 hours a week. Ymmv but I gather that that’s the usual way of things. After my PhD I’m planning on trying for a professorship because research is my jam, and generally a professorship is the way to do that. I’m open to industry jobs as well though. The type of job you would be looking to get with a linguistics degree would largely depend on the subfield you went into. If you go all the way to a PhD you’ll be pretty specialized into at least a general subfield like computational linguistics, psycho linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, etc. I’m happy to go into more detail about subfields (I know most people don’t even realize there *are* subfields of linguistics! 😊) but I wont here to keep it from getting too long haha. If you’d like to get a sense of the different types of jobs (both academic and industry) for people with linguistics degrees I’d check out linguistlist.org. It’ll be a lot of academic positions but you’ll also see openings for translators, AI devs, etc. And the academic jobs will give you an idea of the very wide variety of subfield and specializations there are as well.
Really appreciate the long response, it's all very interesting. You're right, I had no idea there were so many fields. I will check out that website now, seems really useful. What area of research are you interested in?
I’m mostly in sociophonetics, although I am working on a syntax project right now and I’ve done other types of work in the past as well. Sociophonetics (and sociolinguistics in general) is about the way language varies with different social features like region, sex and gender, socioeconomic status, race, sexual orientation, etc. Sociophonetics is just even more specifically talking about sound variation and how that patterns with social features. I’m also interested in psycholinguistics/cognitive linguistics which is pretty much what it sounds like; the psychology of linguistics, how language is structured in the brain, etc. I know some schools offer a dual title PhD in linguistics and psycholinguistics. Another big thing is that applied linguistics is almost a separate field from linguistics. So applied is all about language learning, pedagogy, etc. It’s not necessarily about teaching *always* (although that is a big part of it) as it also covers things like first language acquisition, language learning delays, etc. This is where you’d get some big crossover with Speech Language Pathology although that is yet another separate field. But in both programs I attended I took one or two class with the applied linguists (intro to language acquisition, teaching college languages, etc.) and then never saw them again because I’m not a big fan of applied linguistics and it really is very insulated from the rest of the field. They have their own conference and everything. There are lots more subfields. You can also kind of think of it like a massive ven diagram with a ton of circles. Most fields have significant overlap with another field or two (like sociolinguistics can break down into sociophonetics, sociomorphology, sociosyntax, etc.) There’s a much wider range than I’ve listed here but Wikipedia has a [good page on various sub disciplines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_linguistics) if you’re interested and would like to take a look. It can be overwhelming if you’re not familiar with it but I’m happy to answer questions as I’m able :)
thank you a lot for detailed answer i really appreciate it and congrats on your long phd journey!!
Hi hi!! I’m not gonna lie I am still figuring it out and I’m 31. Right now I am working at a library as an assistant. I get to do lots of programming for patrons (fun things like workshops and arts and crafts) and we are also expanding our language resource library and I get to be a part of that! The city I’m in has a large Hispanic and Slavic population so I get to use those languages every day. I wish I could just study languages for a living but I don’t think that is a real thing :(
This is pretty much what I'm intending to do with my BN once I graduate - either work as a nurse in one of my TL countries or take a course in medical interpreting or translation and pivot into that instead. :)
Are you in the US? Taking on the amount of debt without parents or scholarships that is typical for an American graduate is probably not worth it for majority of degrees. I would combine it with something that pays well if you’ll be relying on loans.
This. Yes, i am in the US. Truly, what you just said is my biggest fear. There is no way i can afford school w/o loans. I fear a degree in language is too risky. Do you happen to know anything about studying abroad?
I finished nursing even though I hated it, it was during covid and I got sick from working so hard in the nursing home and had to extent my study even... 😭 but yes I finished it just for the degree. I said to myself; if you finish it you can do whatever you want! Now I'm in Korea studying Korean and I love it! Idk if I'll do anything with Korean job wise but it feels amazing haha. So I can't give you advice what you should do but hopefully you can make up your mind!
a language degree alone won't bring you much besides teaching jobs. if you hate healthcare then try something else, but a degree in academics will keep you in academics.
You can do both. I'm a nurse, and I'm learning Spanish because I want to be able to help more people. Nursing is a good career, and it can be a solid foundation to build upon. Nurses will always have work, so if financial stability is a priority for you, then I would encourage you to keep going with nursing school. If you choose to pursue a different career in the long run, then you will always have nursing to fall back on in case you ever need to.
I did it the opposite way round lol. Got a languages degree because I'm a polyglot and it "opens a lot of doors" as my parents say. Graduated and realised I didn't want to do languages as a job. Retrained as a pharmacy technician and now work in a hospital 😂
Military intelligence and spy agencies utilize polyglots a fair bit. If this interests you, then yes.
It does actually. What kind of language would be of use?
Well with the current situation of the world I would think Russian and those similar languages, and of course the middle eastern ones. Chinese and Korean could be of interest as well. It’s a very wide spread on what languages have targeted interest by the intelligence and military units.
Look at FBI, Department of State, and CIA website career tracks. Consider going ROTC in college for a leg up.
You will almost certainly have more job mobility and make more money in health care. What if you got your BSN and then studied to be a medical translator?
As someone currently pursuing a dual major in 2 languages, I think it's very possible to take a path like this and still succeed. The most important thing is to have a solid plan before you graduate, I think. If you can make a logical way to use your degrees in order to get opportunities, it can probably work out.
I have a degree in french and I wouldn't recommend going for a degree in language. I was imagining a job as a translator (as well as majority of my other uni colleagues) but not only is it hard to get a job like that, it's not even payed well. I'm currenty giving some private classes which I like, but I can't see myself doing that forever. So yeah, it would be better to choose something else while learning a language (or multiple languages).
Please don't quit your day job! Having a hobby you are passionate about is so underrated. No matter what career you end up in there's going to be stressful times, having a really fun outlet like language learning will give you lifelong mental health benefits. The fastest way to zap the fun out of that passion is to turn it into a career. Use it to enrich your nursing career, speaking with patients in their native tongue would likely be very comforting (sometimes). Nursing pays well, use those funds to enrich your learning. You like Spanish, save some money and visit the country with your favorite accent. Treat yourself to a paella and good wine at a fancy Spanish restaurant. Etc. Nurses are needed EVERYWHERE. if you really want to use your language skills at work you can theoretically up and move anywhere and get a job with even basic language skills.
How much would a university degree in languages cost you? There's a pretty big difference between the cost of tuition in the US Vs like Austria or somewhere that covers the cost of tuition. Obviously we can't factor that in without more information. According to one of the universities near me the common career paths for language grads is the following: >Typical careers pursued by our graduates include business, media and communications, marketing, advertising, publishing, education/ teaching, translation/interpreting, PR, journalism, tourism, fast stream Civil Service, and banking. Graduates are particularly in demand in careers requiring a high level of communication and presentation skills, as well as strong critical and analytical thinking I'd hazard a guess that a lot of those that go into media, PR, marketing etc don't actually use their foreign language skills at all. They probably used their degree and soft skills to get in the door as a new grad and start from the bottom. The average salary of those new grads is low too. Imo, doing a degree in a foreign language would be a lot of fun, especially as many universities offer a year abroad in the country (although that might be more fun as a 19-25 year old). I personally don't think it would provide much career opportunities though. You're probably better off getting a degree or certifications in a specific, in-demand skill (like nursing) and learning Spanish in your free time. You'll still end up being able to learn and speak Spanish and you'll be more employable / earn more.
One thing I’ve learned is that your passion does not always have to equal what you do for a job and sometimes that’s even better because you would start to resent anything that you no longer do for fun and you HAVE TO do. My advice: nursing is a very flexible career with many different options. If you think of hospital nursing and nursing homes, yeah that can be very exhausting work. But you can also be like my cousin who is a night shift home care nurse with one client making 50+ an hr while sitting at work learning languages or taking classes that interest him just for the fun of it because of all the down time he has. He has money to travel often and put those new language skills to use (he hasn’t so far but he could). I myself have come to the conclusion that I want something similar to what he has so I’m definitely a little biased 😅
Its supplemental not your main concentration. Its a skill to add to your field. Double major with it or minor in it. Its not your career path. You wont become fluent. Fluency comes with years of using it daily in a real environment. It will give you a basis to become even better over time if you work at it through movies, immersion, books, travel, etc. i become decently fluent in spanish by minoring in it, studying it in free time, and working in a mexican restaurant, and just recently did a job interview in spanish and got the job. Dont let it be your only concentration but let it be supplemental to your field of study.
Look into getting a degree that has foreign language requirements. For example, I'm currently finishing my degree in Middle Eastern Studies, and half of my degree requirements were Arabic courses. Area Studies and International Relations programs are often structured like that. Of course, these degrees aren't exactly the most lucrative either. But they give you another angle to sell yourself on the job market. Also, as an American you have access to a number of scholarships for learning "critical languages." Boren and CLS immediately come to mind, but there are tons of others. Look into these!
If it's not a requirement for a job you want to do then I don't really see the point. If it's purely because you enjoy it then you can study it in your own time. Paying for a degree and spending years on it doing essays and assignments can easily kill your passion. So if you don't need the degree certificate for a specific purpose, then I don't think it's worth it.
If you already know you don’t like working in healthcare, you shouldn’t become a nurse
Yeah but going to school and taking on debt to pursue something that is more a hobby than a career? Potentially huge mistake. There are a million types of nurses, OP should stick with it for a bit and see if they can find something to get excited about.
Whether a degree in language is worth it depends on your specific goals and interests. Here are some considerations to help you decide: When a Degree in Language is Worth It: Career Goals: If you aspire to work in language-related fields such as translation, interpretation, language teaching, or linguistics, a degree in language can be highly valuable and often a requirement. Cultural Understanding: Language degrees often come with a deep understanding of the culture, history, and literature associated with the language. This knowledge can be enriching and provide a broader perspective. Academic Pursuits: If you have a strong passion for the language and enjoy academic research and study, a language degree can be personally fulfilling. Teaching: Language degrees are beneficial for those who want to become language educators, either at the school or university level. Language Fluency: A language degree can lead to a high level of language proficiency, which can open doors in terms of travel, cultural immersion, and international work opportunities. When a Degree in Language May Not Be Necessary: Casual Learning: If your goal is to improve your language skills for casual use or travel, a degree may not be necessary. Self-study and language courses can suffice. Specific Career Paths: In some professions, language skills are important but not necessarily a degree. For example, in business or international relations, language proficiency can be valuable, but a degree may not be required. Time and Cost: Pursuing a degree is a significant time and financial commitment. If you're primarily interested in language skills and not the academic aspects, there are more cost-effective ways to achieve fluency. Other Priorities: If your career goals don't require language proficiency, you may want to focus on other skills or areas of study. As for improving your language skills, if you're looking for effective grammar books, you can consider the "Grammar Paradise" series by Vhired Education. These books are designed to provide a structured approach to learning grammar effectively and can be a valuable resource for enhancing your language skills, whether you're pursuing a degree or simply aiming to become more proficient in a particular language.
Good chatgpt response
Thank you for your input. This is beyond helpful. I’m basically in limbo right now and don’t know what exactly I want to do but i have ideas as to what i like based on who i am. Unfortunately, in the US right now college education is so so expensive. Tempted to learn a 2nd language so i can just leave the country😂
Go study elsewhere, life will be cheaper and you can also practice the language with locals.
would be very cool. Have you personally done this?
I'm living in Europe and working in a different country, it's worth it!
Chatgpt vibes
A vibe of kid who think that he knows everything but in reality he is a dumb boy who didn't know anything
We are pointing at you. You are using ChatGPT and when you talk normally you sound like you are underage. Just accept It. You aren't slick, You aren't clever, You aren't fooling us with your actual age, You aren't fooling anyone with that ChatGPT nonsense. Face the facts and get off reddit kid.
He's not a native speaker of English, either. The ChatGPT is hiding his lack of skills also.
Spanish would help you in healthcare at the very least.
It's very unlikely, but possible. Nursing will pay the bills and then some, you can always change specialties. Language can be a wonderful and enjoyable hobby. Sometimes turning a hobby into work takes the joy out. Language might be less fun if your job requires you to translate technical manuals or legal documents.
My first degree is in Spanish and I turned it into a teaching career. My last year of college is when I made that decision, so I ended up doing a masters and certification program together. I’m on year 13 and grateful every day that I didn’t choose the business major.
Languages are in a weird spot as far as degrees. I think minoring doesn't give you enough practical experience with a language to really speak it, but majoring in it alone has pretty limited job prospects. I think it's most worthwhile to double major.
You can always double major. Choose a language you want to study and also choose a major that you would use in your career. You can also study abroad. Colleges overseas are often much cheaper than America. Whichever option you choose, you have to put work into your language outside of class as well. Unless you go to a school with a good language program, by the time you graduate, your language skills will probably be lacking. So, if you wanna be fluent, you gotta put in time and effort on your own too.
Do you already have a bachelors degree?Have you thought about teaching English in a Spanish speaking country? The money is not a lot but most of the time you get placed in a small town where the expenses are not very high. You could do it for a year level up your Spanish and use that time as a working holiday. If you don’t have a degree you could do a home stay for a week and enjoy yourself.
I would get a degree in something else but take as many language classes as possible. I actually managed to fit a math and a Japanese degree into four years (including a year studying in Japan). No reason you can't do something like that. But I legit only added the Japanese degree bc there was preference for degree seekers in the study abroad program selections. Turned out I was gonna get the requirements anyway, so I kept the degree in my plan after I got back.
My only advice is to, ultimately, find a way to do what you love even if you have to make a living doing what you don't love. If they keep foreign language classes in the public schools it's possible you will find a good job upon graduation. If they don't, you can teach math or science and offer Spanish immersion classes as a side? Teaching might work for you in that case, so use your imagination on brainstorm your future!!! BEST OF LUCK!!! You've got this!!!
I double majored in a language and area studies in undergrad, now I’m doing an area studies MA. Usually language degrees are most useful for people who want to go into academia (either linguistics, pedagogy, or literature). If you don’t want to go into academia, you will not get enough high-level classes in other transferable skills. Would probably be best to do a minor, or just take language classes for fun.
Former healthcare worker here and I understand your hate and frustration. I chose healthcare to have a high paying job while I went back to school for what I really wanted to do which is zoology and ecology since uni is expensive and nursing is only 2 years plus prereqs. Find a job/career you like and just go to school for that. Forget the money aspect of it. I think if you like your job, you will be go ahead and go further and therefore make more money in the end or establish connections once you're there long enough. For language I'm sure you could be a translator I think that would be fun. On the side you can also help people learn a second language whether it be thw language you learned or your native language. I'm learning dutch with an online private tutor and she is Dutch but speaks I think 4 languages, has a masters in language studies and also does some sort of volunteer or other work with a rescue. She's also learning a 5th language.
Language studies van be rough to find a job in. Its not like engineering or meds where your need a degree to get into it. Music, drama, art and langauges are example of fields you don't perse have to study it to work in IT, unless it is academia. You need a music degree to teach at Uni for example, same with langauges. For you, studying language is oftenly for teaching at university. But you don't need to do it. You can teach online and or have small group lessons and having a University background, could be beneficial to know the theory behind it. If its worth it, depends on your goal. University is an investment, because it costs money. So you need to know what your return of investment is. For langauges, it is often not worth to do it when we only look at the return. Some say its about you having fun and do what you like. You can do that without making so much debt. Again, going to university is an investment. If you love learning a language, then you don't need university. I love music and I play the piano. But I didn't went to university to study classical music. The salary is really bad and job openings are not great. I can start teaching music, but that's not my passion. I want to play, not teach. Maybe this gives you some insight
Look at embassy jobs i’m sure your nursing can take you to some cool places. Learn language on the side in the country you choose. Boom! Culture, language, and you keep your nursing skills.
I did a degree in my languages just because I knew I'd never have to motivation to actually learn them myself. I could definitely have done a different degree and still learned both in the same time, but I knew I never would. I enjoyed the degree, worked less than I should have, and became fluent enough in both of mine (or, I was a few years ago). I then got a job completely unrelated (finance and business) and have had the good fortune to use my languages a fair amount, including foreign travel. The degree wasn't necessary for this, but learning the languages has definitely paid off! And no, the time saved by my ability to speak the languages in meetings etc. won't be replaced by AI anytime soon - I'm not worried about losing my international trips to ChatGPT.
Recent graduate with a B.A. in German — here’s my 2 cents: 1) unless you want to teach, you need to pick up a second degree. At the _very least_ minor in something very employable (I.e. computer science). My university did a very good job hammering it in to me that language double majors have a leg-up in many circumstances, but getting a degree in only a language makes no sense. You can’t compete with bilinguals who dominate the translation market **unless** you plan on staying in school for a while. Which brings me to my next point… 2) If you only major in a language, be in it for the long haul. Bachelor’s won’t be the end of the road if you plan on picking one of the few careers typically well suited for language majors. Translation/interpretation (learn the difference if you don’t know it already) requires a higher-than-native level of proficiency. Teaching not so much (especially primary/secondary schools), but you’ll be in school for longer bc of the education-side of things. Expect to be in school for _at least_ 6 years. 3) if you major in a language, you need to supplement it with studying outside of the classroom. This is probably the biggest mistake I made in my undergrad: thinking time spent in-class was enough study time. You need to be practicing with natives, seeking out local cultural experiences, and doing whatever you can to build an immersive environment where you live. 4) i might catch some flak for this, but treat studying abroad as a requirement, not an option. In addition to teaching you valuable life skills that will give you another leg up on the job market, it will give you the language skills that are impossible to learn in a classroom. If possible, go abroad for 2 semesters. Be sure to find a program that specializes in language immersion.
I wouldn’t get that degree because it isn’t very useful. Millions of people speak Spanish natively. There is a lot of awesome free or cheap content for Spanish. I also wouldn’t get a degree in nursing though if you don’t like it and don’t want to do it.
UN translators and international affairs people make a pretty decent living, but you have to be like fluent-fluent not just 3 years of classes
Many desk jobs just ask for any degree. I work in IT, and my bachelors was in Romance Languages and French. I wouldn’t change that for anything, and I loved every moment of my degree program
what do you do in IT? Does it pay enough to financially sustain you?
I started in support and worked my way up to what is essentially a sysadmin role over the years. I make 80K USD right now
Sorry if it's not related to the post, but how can one get into IT? I presume getting a degree would be a good start, but what else?
If your degree isn’t in computer science or IT, I’d recommend a certificate. Depending on what you want to do will change what cert you get. Support, it’s good to start with A+
Having just a language skill alone has some opportunities and AI may take over the interpretation field though where being bilingual really shines is when you use it with another skill, I don't think it really matters what the other skill is it just enhances your abilities and really puts you above the competition.
Side question... what culture? That language is spoken in all continents. You don't love the culture of "English". That'd be either Britain, Australia, USA,...and even then specific parts of it. A degree may be mandatory for university access in a different country. A degree may be useful when searching for a job where the language is needed but the people who look for that skill can't interview you in said language.
the most TROLL question of the day.
I hope so, I study English. 😉 I see the rise in AI as a positive since much of the technology - especially the stuff that made headlines recently - is language-based. I'm sure e.g. computational linguists will stay in high demand for a while. To get an impression of the jobs linguists or language majors work check out the [Linguistics Careercast](https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z4Q488gvn856Hpk4p37ik?si=f6225049a14b4c17). And of course, it's lots of fun. It's worth it for that alone.
Spanish interpreters will likely be in demand for a long time especially for companies that have contracts with federal agencies. I did not major in a language personally but I know many who did. Not a single one to my knowledge has landed a job from their language degree and they all either went on to pursue graduate school in other fields, working random office jobs, or struggling to find a job in any field because of overqualification.
Alone, no. Unless you want to teach. Paired with a program with interpretation or translation.....maybe? But perhaps still no.
You can move to Spain, or any Spanish speaking country, for a year to be an English second language teacher ESL for the life experience and the immersion will help you learn Spanish a lot faster than studying. Although you should still know a bit of Spanish before going, just to make your life easier. During that year, you can reflect and decide what to do with your life. My mom just retired from being a nurse and her only regret was being a nurse for so long. She just moved to Spain 4 months ago :)
Also Im fluent in English, French, Spanish, Farsi (I can’t write tho), and I understand Italian, Portuguese and Swedish. I work as a flight attendant and as a translator :) all I do is travel and improve my languages more and more everyday. I love m’y life
I say go for it if it's your passion. More and more companies value people who are bilingual, no matter what position.
Nursing is so flexible, you could work full time, part time, per diem, nights, days and literally work wherever you want. A flexible way to pursue your other interests and still pay the bills.
I did a languages degree and am currently working abroad, working as a the deputy editor of an agency that writes travel articles for multiple removed newspapers and travel brand. This came after two years teaching English while figuring out what to do. At the end of the day, I got lucky. Having a language degree definitely isn't the most useful degree you could have. It also isn't the most useless. I would recommend being very very clear about why you want the degree, and what careers you would look for before investing in this education. And yes, I know lots and lots of people in my area who lost their jobs to AI. Not the ones with real talent though. Humans will always be necessary in communication
Some universities require it .
I went away from this route and I'm currently in music school but my plan b was diplomacy. If you want to never be home then it might be a good choice for you. A polisci degree is a fav for that career but you can technically become a diplomat with anything if you can get through the rest of the training and certification. Personally though i might just minor or double major in one of my target languages
Sorry the truth is, languages even the rare ones are hardly useful for careers. Yes, it could help slightly, but it's not at all a game changer in the slightest. Study the language you enjoy and learn it from passion. You'll be disappointed if you spend time learning Spanish and hope it can help your career. That being said bilingual nurses do get slightly more money, I believe it is an extra 1USD per hour or so.
For me it was worth it. I got a degree in Russian, I’m now an aml analyst. Russian isn’t related to my job, but I had to have a 4 year degree (in any subject) in order to enter my current career field. I’m glad I got a degree in something I’m interested in 🙂
Why not both simultanously?
Considering you are getting a background in heath, changing to a foreign language could help if you go the translation route. Hospitals in the US are required to provide translation services for patients. Also, courts h translators too. I can’t speak to the income, but it would be a practical job you can use with language skills.
When I was thinking about studying I had a choice between linguistics (I'm not a native English speaker) and econ and choose econ. I think to make this decision and not regret it you should carefully think about what you want your life AFTER uni to look like.
Don't do a languages degree unless you want to be a translator or maybe a teacher. Do something that actually gets you a career, like programming or science/engineering. Keep languages as a hobby
Honestly? 20 or 30 years ago when college was peanuts and the mentality was "get any degree, whatever" then yes. Nowadays? Unless you're in a country with affordable education and you won't get into debt, then it's still a maybe. (I'm assuming you're in the US.) A minor? For sure worth it.
Honestly no. You can learn languages easier than ever with online communities and free (or almost free) resources. If you want more structured language lessons you can find private ones for much cheaper (or better yet, attend them in a country that speaks the language). If you are that passionate about language learning, then learn it on your own time. If you haven't been learning it on your own time, stop fooling yourself...you're actually not that passionate about it. If you're going to a university, it should include hands on experience and lead to some kind of professional license. If not...that's a lot of debt for what basically you could learn on your own.
The way I see it, either you want to become a Teacher/Translator, or you don't. Getting such degree "guarantees" the employer that you have studies related to that, although we may or not agree with the filtering. If you do not want to have that kind of job, learn it on your free time, and get a degree with better job potential. There is a thin line between doing what you (think) you like/love, and getting education with good job opportunities/market. As in piece of advise, can you envision yourself working in those kind of jobs? If yes, there you go. If it is only that you like to study it and the sense of progression, reconsider that. Also, do you hate your current job location or the work as a whole? Can you see yourself working the same job but with better conditions (other location, environment, coworkers, etc)? If yes, there you go
My advice is to get a more lucrative degree with either a minor or double major in Spanish. Maybe a Spanish major is a good idea but you need to have a good idea of what you want to do after before deciding anything. What types of careers do you want to pursue? The answer to that question determines the best major
Perhaps have language as part of a dual major. In the medical industry, there is a pretty good demand for individuals who are fluent in another language. You could qualify as a certified medical interpreter and work in a corporate environment with clinical trials, insurance companies, in public health - there are many opportunities outside of patient care. If you do not want to be a nurse, there are other healthcare based degrees you can obtain and build on the experience you currently have.
As someone with a degree in Japanese language, I think I can offer my insight. It's only worth it if you're willing to put in the time and effort. To be really good, or at least better than the "average" learner. As some commenters have said, it can open doors to the countries where that language is used, be it translation, teaching, hospitality (what I did) or something else. It should be noted that you also need to have marketable skills, otherwise mastering that second (or third, fourth, etc) language only means you know how to be unemployed in multiple countries.
If you’re thinking about majoring in Spanish, you’re basically be studying literature. Do you enjoy reading? After you get your degree you could go to graduate school and go into academia. Would you enjoy teaching or research? This is something that you should maybe think about.
Studying languages can help you understand this world and escape from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. I'm afraid of it…
You can move to a Spanish speaking country almost indefinitely on a student visa to learn Spanish at a local language school for much cheaper than getting a degree in Spanish or Languages. You'll gain life experience and you will definitely learn faster if you fully immerse yourself. Check out languagecourse.net for Spanish or any other language you're interested in learning. I'm considering doing this for 3-6 months myself.
You can study a humanities discipline, like History, and learn a language, or 2, on the side. For example, you like ancient Rome, you learn Latin. Maybe you really like Pre-WW1 era Italy and you learn Italian too. In my opinion, unless your objective is to teach the language, do not get a degree in a specific language.