Learning foreign language at Tech

Subin Lee
Is it really necessary to learn a foreign language? In the Georgia Tech curriculum, it is required for all majors to take two consecutive foreign language courses. But then, how helpful would it be for the students who learned foreign language at Tech. Would they ever use it outside of college, or even outside their class?

The importance of learning various languages does not seem that high. Though it might have some value in learning the basic structure of other languages, the practicality for most students in using it outside their class is very small. However, there might be a small portion of students who enjoy learning other languages and utilize it in the real world. One case for example is the study abroad program. A student might be interested in learning French in order to get some knowledge and basic words to use when going to study in GT-Lorraine. This case can be for any other schools at other countries.

For some majors concerning with communication internationally, the existence of foreign language classes may be a key class. Nevertheless, at Georgia Tech, most students being engineers have minimal use of foreign language. The international language for engineers is numerical numbers. Most students are already busy with their other hardcore classes, such as Mathlab or lab sciences which consume a huge amount of time. Introductory foreign language classes can somewhat take a lot of time as well since one of the best way in learning foreign language is to practice and memorize. Some students however take these foreign language classes as a GPA booster, yet it still consumes a lot of time, which can affect the overall grade for other classes.

Foreign language classes still require a lot of effort and time, yet it might be helpful in later real world jobs in communicating, but it does not seem to be very helpful in college.