From the life of this SmallTownGirl…
A foreign language is something that most students need to have so they can graduate high school, college or both.
Unfortunately, I am a student that falls into this category. I had zero, ZERO foreign language in high school. They offered Spanish I my freshman year of high school over a TV chat, and then Chinese over the Internet my senior year. I didn’t have a chance to take any consecutive foreign languages; they simply weren’t offered at my school. To fulfill my requirements to graduate, I took computer classes instead.
While I enjoyed my computer classes and even learned a lot in them, they did not help me out very much in college. For my degree, I have to take 10 hours of foreign language to graduate because I didn’t have any foreign language credits from high school.
Being enrolled in a five-hour class that I know nothing about has been extremely taxing as a student with a full plate. I know it’s not necessarily my high schools fault that I didn’t have foreign language in high school, but it definitely is a disadvantage for required classes. If foreign languages classes are mandated for most majors in college, there needs to be more funds dedicated to that department.
I love my high school for many reasons, but being prepared for college is not one of them. I had some great times and memories from my high school days. I wish I had a few more memories that revolved around academics, but you can’t win all your battles. There’s a real need for more attention brought to the need for foreign language in schools, especially small, tight budgeted, rural school districts.
Small town life is great, but I’m always experiencing new things outside of it.
We’ll talk more next week. Until then, reach for the stars without forgetting about your roots.
STP 