Why study German?
Personal growth:
Learning a foreign language opens up many new perspectives and possibilities, on a professional as well as a personal level. Gaining familiarity with a different culture introduces you to new ways of thinking and heightens your awareness and understanding of your own culture. In particular, the opportunity to spend a year, a semester, or even a summer abroad can be an extremely rewarding and satisfying experience, and just two years of language study at UGA will allow you to participate in a study-abroad program. While all this can be said of any language, there are a number of reasons why German could top your list of languages to learn.
Business opportunities:
Almost one thousand American companies do business with Germany, and over one thousand companies based in German-speaking countries have subsidiaries in the U.S. In all of these firms there is a need for workers with an understanding of both languages and of the differences between the two cultures. Knowledge of German not only helps one get a job, but often is a significant factor in advancement within a company. In a number of high-tech companies (in automotive engineering, optics, medical instrumentation, etc.) German is the language named as the foreign language they would most like job applicants to know. A good knowledge of German, especially if combined with the business vocabulary and practice you get by taking Business German offered in our department, would make your application stand out from the crowd.
Research possibilities:
Imagine being able to read works of the German thinkers in your philosophy classes in the original German, not being dependent on the program notes and translations for understanding German music, reading the theory of relativity as Einstein wrote it! Aside from the enticing option of focussing on German literature and culture in your studies at UGA, German is also an important language for doing research in many other areas, from the natural sciences to political science to art, and it is almost indispensible for doing advanced studies in areas like music history, classics, philosophy, and theology.
Travel:
German is not only the language of Germany, Austria, and a large part of Switzerland, but it is commonly spoken in several eastern European countries, where it is the first or second choice of people learning a foreign language. It is a very useful language for both the business traveller and the tourist. You may be able to "get by" in English, but think how much more you can get out of talking with people in their own language or in a language in which they feel more at home than in English!
Roots:
About 20% of the American population claims German ancestry, so, for many students, learning German will put them in touch with their roots. You may finally be able to read the inscriptions on the backs of those old family pictures that you could never decipher, speak to Grandma in her native language, or look up those relatives in Germany who are listed in the family tree.
Others:
Since German and English share a common background, many words in English are related to German words, and we share many grammatical structures as well. This makes learning German easier, but also helps us understand how our own language developed and how it functions. There are also a number of opportunities to actively use German in Athens: Deutsche Welle is on a number of cable servers, including the university cable network, so you can see German television programs, watch German news, etc. regularly. For other ways to actively use your German, see the "Resources" heading on this website.
There are four ways to receive formal recognition of advanced study of German at the University of Georgia: the German Studies major , the German Studies minor , the combined major in Germanic and Slavic Studies , the Certificate in Business and Political German. For more information, go to the Programs section .
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