Stand Out From The Crowd By Being A French Major

2009 August 30
by publisher

Undertaking a French degree at college may seem like it’s a daunting task, but you will be amazed by the amount of French you already know so don’t back away from the challenge of it.

College-level French courses are not like high school ones. In addition to studying the language itself, you will be taking classes in French literature, French culture, French civilization, French film and French politics. You will become fluent in French in four years and you will likely have had the opportunity to experience living and studying overseas.

Basic French courses will be where you start out, with your level of study being determined by a freshman placement test. Work as hard as you can initially as building a solid grounding will see you reaping the benefits as the course progresses.

On completion of the initial stage of the course, you will advance to studying literature. Along with literature, comes a selection of complimentary courses including advanced grammar, translation, advanced composition, french phonetics and french linguistics.

Your classes will likely be small, making it easy to get on friendly terms with your professors. Most French departments are like families with all within it willing to assist each other and share ideas and resources when they can. Also, you will have a very easy time getting personal recommendations from your professors because they will know you well.

The class sizes can be a disadvantage at times also though. There will be fewer course options to select from when compared to those studying other majors and, though it is uncommon, too few students enrolling can mean courses getting cancelled.

Having completed your degree you will have no problem finding work. Some majors work as translators whilst others transition into related fields such as linguistics, literary analysis and comparative literature. Still, the vast majority of French majors become French teachers or move on to post-graduate French studies.

Find Out More : French Phrases

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