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If you went to college what did you major | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6043 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 153 of 169 21 April 2011 at 10:07pm | IP Logged |
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I have a Bachelor Degree in Biochemistry and currently working at two others. I have to admit I picked by degree by flicking randomly through a careers book which I don't recommend to anyone but it pays the course and book fees.
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| hattivat Triglot Newbie Poland Joined 4960 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, Indonesian Studies: Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 154 of 169 30 April 2011 at 8:23pm | IP Logged |
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As this is my first post here, hello everybody.
I'm graduating with a BA in linguistics this year but I'm certainly going to pursue a second, completely unrelated, degree that is more "employable", most likely some kind of engineering. I'm contemplating Electrical Engineering at Maritime Academy. Tough to have a family with this job (spending half a year at sea) but the salary is right and you get to travel a lot, seems a safe bet. Now the longer version of the story for those interested, hopefully it will help someone: At high school I chose concentration in advanced Maths and English. When choosing high school I thought about doing engineering or programming major afterward but somewhere along the road I've decided that I'm going to disregard "employability" aspect of my studies. Besides, people who attend engineering courses here in Poland tend to be sooo lame and tasteless (mixture of hopeless geeks, wanna-be metalheads and simpletons whose ability to pass is a mystery) that I just couldn't imagine spending class time with them, let alone hanging out. So I went for a major that I truly love: linguistics. And to be fair it's not that bad to study languages in Europe, given that as several people pointed out before me there is genuine demand for people with such skills. Those of my colleagues who study hard to get their M.A.s will certainly land a job, perhaps even a good one for Polish standards. But there are two catches. First, there is demand for people able to speak other European languages, not so much for those who speak non-European languages. Second, most of the jobs you can get this way (translator, interpreter, teacher, sales manager) virtually ensure that you are going to spend your lifetime in Europe as there is hardly any way for a Polish translator of, say, German to live anywhere else than in Poland/Germany/Austria/Switzerland. And that's a pity since in the course of my studies, and especially while I was on scholarship in Indonesia, I've discovered two crucial things about myself: 1. I find European languages uninteresting 2. I don't want to live in Europe (certainly not for >350 days a year) And that complicates matters quite significantly. I enjoyed being in Asia so much that I can no longer imagine landing a job for $1000/mth in Poland (this salary is actually rather good for this country) and saving my money and leave days for two or three years in this depressing place just to be able to spend a month in Asia. No way. I've been considering going to China to teach English, which contrary to what many of you may think is very possible despite me not being a native speaker - I personally know two Polish girls who do just that and one of them even managed to get a nice salary (9000 RMB/mth). But this doesn't seem a viable option for a long-term career, and I don't feel like having two or three years of awesome time just to return to my miserable life here afterward. I can't say I'm unhappy with my linguistics studies, quite the opposite. I believe this major made me a better person and gave me quite a few useful (even if unmarketable) skills. I wouldn't have got a scholarship to study in Indonesia if I didn't study linguistics, quite probably I wouldn't even know about its existence. Consequently, I wouldn't know how it is like to live in Asia and thus wouldn't want to move there. So if I decided to study engineering straight out of college I would quite likely be a dull person now, with no idea what I want to do with my life. In a sense, I believe it is better for me to study engineering now that I know exactly what my goals and options are. But again, I have a comfort of living in a country where university tuition is free so I can't say I've wasted anything other than three years of my time doing linguistics. And I don't really think I've wasted them, in the process I learned a lot more about the world, life and people in general than I would have had if I were an engineering major for the same time. Moreover, I've learned to speak English much better than I did before uni, which is always an asset. Especially considering that the job market here is really shitty for everyone, even for engineers (starting salary for a M.Eng. in most majors is around $500 a month, seriously), except for the lucky few who have CEOs among their family. Emigration seems a must for anyone remotely ambitious. So I kind of agree with both sides of the debate - on one hand, education is not just about getting a job, it can truly enrich you as a person and stimulate you intellectually in ways that you aren't likely to get from mere hobbies. But on the other, one has to choose his/her major with a clear idea of who he wants to be in five years time and how probable it is for him/her to succeed at achieving that considering their major, university's prestige and job market in their country. The latter is crucial, in the US I hear there are hardly any unemployed MBAs, but here in Poland studying "Zarządzanie" (which is more or less an equivalent of MBA) became very fashionable around 2000 that now there is such an oversupply of graduates that they are literally lucky if they work as cashiers in McDonald's. On the other hand, what seems useless in the USA (Spanish, Chinese) can actually get you a nice job here. It's not to mean that you shouldn't choose "useless" majors if you are truly passionate about them, you just need to have a clear picture of what you want to do after graduation. And I totally agree with one of the posters who blamed much of the problem on low-quality high school education. Judging from ignorance young Americans I encounter tend to display you are truly in crisis out there when it comes to general education (especially geography and world history). But it isn't a bed of roses here either, the quality of secondary education here in Europe is also dropping rapidly. I reckon this is most likely due to the introduction of mindless for-the-test rote learning that our current standardized-exam system encourages. As for translation - I think people whose native language isn't English are lucky in that respect. There is probably little demand for English-Chinese translation since many Chinese know English and they can translate themselves, cheaper. But if you are from Poland and know Chinese then you are sorely needed, since no reputable company can allow double-translating documents Chinese-English-Polish, such translation would obviously be flawed. And you can imagine that fluent speakers of Polish among Chinese people are few and far between. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Carisma Diglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 5625 days ago 104 posts - 161 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC1 Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 155 of 169 15 May 2011 at 5:49am | IP Logged |
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I am currently studying Spanish to English and English to Spanish translation.
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| boisjolie Newbie United States Joined 5296 days ago 26 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 156 of 169 21 May 2011 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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I'm still in college. My majors are International Relations and Political Science. I'll be picking up minors in Spanish and Latin American Studies.
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| vvaamim Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4957 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish | Message 157 of 169 01 June 2011 at 6:27am | IP Logged |
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I'm majoring in Linguistics and either Military Science or
Hotel Hospitality. Hopefully it goes well.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jondesousa Tetraglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 227 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish | Message 158 of 169 02 June 2011 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
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I have a bachelor's and master's degree in Plastics Engineering.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5418 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 159 of 169 02 June 2011 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
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I'm majoring in Economics and Accounting at University of California, Santa Barbara.
I graduate in 10 days. X_X 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5053 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 160 of 169 25 June 2011 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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Psychology and German. But I'm looking into getting the teaching certificate to teach German and not go the psych route since my interest is mainly experimental research, I have no interest in the counseling part of psych. But I'm so close to finishing that degree, but will persue the German instead for a career.
In my opinion a language is useful and practical if you plan to use it. It's if and how you use it, many in my life say German isn't useful, but it's up to me to make it useful. I may not live in Germany now, but if I teach it, or do anything else involving German, than it is useful in the real world. So ya languages may not seem useful in the real world, but they can be and will be if you allow it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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