One common question every high school counselor encounters concerns taking a foreign language in high school. The perception is that one needs to take a foreign language to go to college. Relatively very few colleges actually require a language to be taken. In our own great state of Illinois, only two of the twelve actually require two years: UIC and U of I-Urbana-Champaign. The other ten either don't require it or give the student other options such as doing two years of a fine art instead or some combination of a couple different subject areas. Even UIC and UIUC have some flexibility in the requirement depending on an individual student's situation.
That's not to say taking a language is a bad idea. It's considered a core subject area by most colleges and looks good on a transcript. In addition, some colleges will permit high school language to take the place of their own graduation requirements. For UIUC three years of a language in high school would meet their university-wide world language requirement. Most importantly, and seemingly forgotten, is that a foreign language is intrinsically worthwhile intellectually. Developing an understanding of another culture and how a language is put together are two huge benefits that spring to mind.
But, what's most important is that a student develop intellectually in high school. That growth can happen in any number of ways. For instance if a student interested in computing wanted to take a bunch of computer classes instead of foreign language, a fair argument could be made that those technology classes would be more worthwhile for that student. The student is likely to apply him or herself more and is deepening understanding in a subject area. Fitting in a world language just to fit in a world language isn't always necessary for college admissions and, for one's intellectual development, it's not a prerequisite either.
That's not to say taking a language is a bad idea. It's considered a core subject area by most colleges and looks good on a transcript. In addition, some colleges will permit high school language to take the place of their own graduation requirements. For UIUC three years of a language in high school would meet their university-wide world language requirement. Most importantly, and seemingly forgotten, is that a foreign language is intrinsically worthwhile intellectually. Developing an understanding of another culture and how a language is put together are two huge benefits that spring to mind.
But, what's most important is that a student develop intellectually in high school. That growth can happen in any number of ways. For instance if a student interested in computing wanted to take a bunch of computer classes instead of foreign language, a fair argument could be made that those technology classes would be more worthwhile for that student. The student is likely to apply him or herself more and is deepening understanding in a subject area. Fitting in a world language just to fit in a world language isn't always necessary for college admissions and, for one's intellectual development, it's not a prerequisite either.