Ten Reasons
Ten excellent reasons why studying a Global Language at Carolina early and often makes a real difference in your education and future career goals.
1. Make yourself way more marketable on the job market!
It’s no secret just how networked the world is today. Knowing a Global Language means you can navigate yourself linguistically and culturally far better than anyone who commands just one language or knows just one culture. Employers badly need worldly employees capable of negotiating linguistic and cultural difference. Follow the money!
2. Study abroad, secure an international internship, see the world, get connected!
Studying a Global Language is the very best reason for studying abroad or securing an international internship. A singular experience only possible during your college years, studying abroad involves so much more than classroom learning. It’s about life learning. Up your language game. Learn the ins and outs of another culture. Become an ambassador. Get real work experience. Make new friends for life.
3. Become an expert communicator!
There’s no better way at becoming a master of your mother tongue than learning another language. Learning how another language works invariably sharpens your grasp of how your own first language works. Critical reflection about how language works is a first step in becoming a wordsmith. Sticking with your Global Language is guaranteed to make you an eloquent rhetorician.
4. Harness the power of critique!
Learning a Global Language means learning not just a new and different language but also seeing the world around you through different lenses. Global Languages give you the edge of critical distance and the power of deep reflection that help put home and abroad into new profound perspectives.
5. Internationalize your major and minor!
Every Global Language offered at Carolina pairs wonderfully with every other major and minor offered at Carolina. German and Chemistry. Chinese and Applied Physical Sciences. French and Anthropology. Russian and Peace, War and Defense. Latin and Biology. The possible combinations are endless. What’s more, studying a Global Language at Carolina automatically broadens your major’s and minor’s horizons in endless ways.
6. Globalize your cultural literacy!
Recite a poem in Turkish. Read a story in Dutch. Watch a movie in Italian. Studying Global Languages exposes you to the past and present; thinkers and their ideas; as well as artists and works or art that have made the world what it is today. Your command of a Global Language ensures that your cultural literacy is global in perspective and erudite.
7. Find your people!
For some, Carolina can be big and scary. Studying Global Languages at Carolina exposes you to other kindred spirits also interested in your chosen Global Language in smaller, often intimate settings. Not only are Global Languages your gateway to finding community at Carolina, but Global Languages almost always offer students extracurricular programming that makes learning together fun.
8. Become a global citizen!
If studying abroad doesn’t work for you, learning a Global Language at Carolina can still transport you beyond Chapel Hill into a polylingual and multicultural world. Graduate from Carolina knowing far more about our networked world than ever before.
9. Get happy!
Learning a Global Language is a real source of happiness for Carolina’s undergraduates. Language study is inherently social. Progress in language study can be palatable in a short period of time. Extra-curricular opportunities are a source of intellectual enrichment. Combined with another major or minor, Global Language study is an ideal way to balance your college education.
10. Know thyself!
There’s no better way to learn about who you really are and what makes you tick than learning a Global Language.