languages

Languages-Literature Major
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Felicia_Surya_Pranata]Felicia Surya Pranata

So, I was browsing yesterday and found a good blog in which one of the posts speaks about languages/literature major, particularly in Indonesia.

The post is in Indonesian, but the main point is that, "Languages/literature major is very different than that of any other major such as Accounting or Medicine, or Engineering, which prepares the students of the major to be able to immediately enter the field after graduation."

My opinion says, in other words, college majors are divided into two categories: those who prepare you for a specific job, and those which are studied because you have interest in them.

However, the latter are somewhat less appreciated in the society, because they seem to be showing an image of having 'undefined job prospects', and languages/literature major often falls into this category.

It might be true, that the people who take up languages/literature in university might not know what they want to become in life, because the skills which they obtain from this higher education are applicable in almost every field, which makes it a major which offers you a lot of job opportunities after graduation.

However, it's sort of true that this major lead to no specific or defined job, unlike Accounting which prepares you to become an accountant, or unlike Medicine which prepares you to become a doctor, for example.

Then why do people take up languages/literature major, if it doesn't lead to a specific job? Well, I should then say that those who wish to take up this major should be those who really have interest and passion in the field.

Don't take up this major just because you think it's easy. It's definitely not. I just learnt these from my German classes. There are people who need to struggle hard learning the languages.

There are people who have no interest at all but they don't have any choice but to learn the language in order to be able to study/work/live in Germany.

And there are people too, who need to struggle hard despite of having no interest in order to strive and to score real decent marks. And seriously, this pressure is stressful for them.

Perhaps, languages/literature major can be considered as a hard major too, if one doesn't have interest or doesn't have the talent in the field. Then, why does it have a less prestigious image in the society? Based on my experience, moreover in developing countries.

If my relatives ask me what would I major in, and if I answered German, perhaps they would frown and ask me again, "What would you do with the degree in such major?". Answering, "A lot," wouldn't sound an answer to them.

The negative responses from the society often discourage the people from taking languages/literature major. This leads to these people to think of some other majors, which prepare them for work.

Like Accounting, or Medicine.

Without actually having any interest. Honestly, I think nobody is really interested in the field of 'engineering' or 'accounting' or 'medicine'. For example is my own friend.

She's into Mathematics and is now taking Engineering. Although this is an exceptional case, since she's looking for a university whose medium of instruction is English, she hasn't got so much choice if she sticks
to Math, so she opened up for some other related major like Engineering.

There are people like her too, but who have the opportunity to actually study Math at university level, but refuse to do so, or have once considered to do so, but then are discouraged like in the situation I have described above, ended up taking Engineering which is, well, it has Math, but it is not Math.

The same for language major. I refuse to take anything like Journalism or Communication although people say it involves a lot of writing and reading and having interest in languages would definitely be useful, because I'm interested in languages particularly German, not in Journalism.

Journalism might be related to languages, but Journalism is not languages.

Engineering also, is not only about Math. There are some other modules which might not be liked by the person taking up this major, and this can make the studies not enjoyable.

Well, it's a risk of taking such major which leads to a specific job. Stressful prestige, isn't it?

So, perhaps it would be better to major in whatever you can and whatever you have interest in. Because in the end, it is not guaranteed that those 'more prestigious' majors surely going to offer you 'these well defined' jobs after you graduate.

Roughly saying, just major in whatever you wish, because if there are no jobs available for the graduates of the major, then the major itself wouldn't be there. http://soerjapfelicia.blogspot.com/

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