But is it practical?

Overall, it is a good thing to master more than one language. It can help a person to better understand their own thought processes, as well as those of others, since we not only speak, read, and write language, but we also think in language. This is an example of a higher level of education and becoming a well rounded scholar and professional. Knowing more than one language can be personally valuable in different ways, and personal reasons for wanting to learn a language other than your own can be intellectual, cultural, as well as sentimental. An individual may have a personal interest in a certain culture, or you just think Russian “sounds cool”, and you want to learn it. Or maybe you just want to challenge yourself with the difficult task of learning a certain language. As a genealogist, I would like to learn the now almost-extinct language of the Louisiana French Creoles, who are my grandmother’s ancestors. All of these are good personal reasons to learn languages other than your own.

With that said, colleges and universities should make studying a foreign language a requirement for graduation, but only for certain majors or career objectives where it will be used. The immense amount of time, money, effort, and resources that are required to become fluent in another language can be wasted if knowledge of that language cannot be put to some sort of practical use. Colleges should recognize this and not make foreign language mastery mandatory unless it has a practical use. The usefulness of the specific language to be studied should be aligned with a college’s requirements for completion of that program. For example, what practical purpose would it serve to learn to be fluent in, let’s say, Japanese or German, if you are pursuing a degree in Social Studies, and plan to use that degree in California or New York? The answer is, none; Japanese or German will virtually never be used in the line of such a career. However, fluency in Spanish can be highly useful as an American social worker almost anywhere in the United States, and it would be a smart move for students planning to enter that field to achieve some level of mastery of that language. Spanish is the second most used language in the United States, so college requirements for graduation or certification for a career in social work, or other careers that will require for a person to interact with people on that level, should include that specific language. Another practical reason for foreign language study to be a college requirement would be if you plan on working or studying abroad. In that case, having a good knowledge of that local language would be essential to success, and college requirements should reflect this. This is also true for other educational requirements, such as requiring for a student pursuing a degree and a career as a Registered Nurse to have to successfully complete certain Fine Arts courses that will never be used. Even though there may be intellectual, cultural, or sentimental values attached with being knowledgeable about different subjects, it may not be practical for every student, and college requirements should not have students or instructors wasting their time in any way.