European Languages and Societies Commons^™

The Global Geek: Language Training For It Students’ Study Abroad In Austria And Germany, Gwyneth E. Cliver, Deepak Khazanchi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

The Modern Language Association’s (MLA) urgent appeal for the restructuring of the undergraduate language curriculum, “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World,” emphasizes a need for language departments to enrich their upper-division course offerings beyond the traditional literary studies model in order to attract and retain broader interest in language learning among students with diverse academic interests and needs. Citing the National Science Foundation’s 2003 Survey of College Graduates, it stresses that only 6.1% of undergraduates whose primary major is a foreign language later achieve doctorate degrees and concludes that departments should provide upper-division language courses …