Preparing Foreign Languages and Literatures Students for the Professions
The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures helps majors and minors prepare for their future professions by providing them with the opportunity to develop several significant skills that will allow them to assume leadership roles in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century: the linguistic skills that will enable them to communicate and do business with non-English speakers; the cross-cultural awareness that will help them understand and deal with people whose worldview is defined by different values and norms than our own; the analytical thinking that comes from learning to write clear and persuasive prose in both their own language and another; and the liberal education that will allow them the flexibility to make the rapid shifts that the workplace of the twenty-first century will most certainly demand.
Graduates of programs in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures have recently received jobs in the U.S. and abroad in areas including high school and university teaching, translation, domestic and international business, military and civilian intelligence, computer science, international law, hotel management, Foreign Service, Peace Corps, International Monetary Fund, international airlines and expediting services, international consulting, international journalism, and other professions. A number of graduates have gone on to law school, business school, and medical school, where they tend to prepare themselves for the international aspects of their later careers.
The Department helps prepare not only its own students but those in other departments and colleges for their future professions by cooperating with other units that stress the importance of foreign language and cross-cultural skills, for example the Program in International Studies, the Area Studies Programs of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the joint M.A. Program in Area Studies that is being offered in conjunction with the Departments of History and Geography. In addition, the Department is currently working with the Colleges of Engineering and Business to develop international tracks that will produce globally-aware and linguistically-competent professionals in these areas through on-campus study and study abroad.
Return to the Deparment of Foreign Languages and Literatures.