Majoring in a language thats your native language?

[uclaussr]

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Suppose i speak Russian, would it look bad for med schools if i majored in Russian Languages? would they think im a slacker?

 

[DendWrite]

If they are just language classes and Russian is your native language, then yeah, it seems like kind of a waste of time (and money) and makes you look like a slacker. If it's Russian history / literature / culture major then that's a different story. But if it's simply Russian language, it seems to me like it'd be me taking "English as a second language" classes when it's my first language. If your nationality is Russian and you put that down on your application, you're going to get asked about it and then have to lie about it or look bad.

 

[Longshanks]

Since language majors due tend to incorporate literature and history of from the culture that language stems from, I think you'd be better off minoring in Russian. Since you are a native speaker, I'm sure you could skip all the language classes and jump into the literature and history courses, which are taught and spoken in that given language. That way its more like English speakers who major in English. Its about the literature and cultural aspects of the language, not learning the language itself. Speak to the department and see if there's a competency exam or if they will let you skip the intermediate and advanced language classes since you're a native speaker, and then fulfill your minor credit requirements by taking the literature courses.

Just taking the major because you already speak it would be incredibly lazy. Equally, don't be that "native speaker" who then fails. A kid speaking Spanish "since birth" failed miserably in the Intermediate Spanish class I took. Quite pathetic.

 

[Hoody]

Country slang is my native language.


Yeah, I'm pretty .....been thinking about picking up some Rosetta Stone tho.

 

[futureboy]

A kid speaking Spanish "since birth" failed miserably in the Intermediate Spanish class I took. Quite pathetic.

Epic fail.

 

[MossPoh]

I was a German Lit major and had a number of native speakers in my classes. They did no better or worse than the rest of us on average. It is especially true if the person only learned to speak the language at home with their parents. The only people that did very well were the ones that attended school in Germany before hand. Writing essays, analyzing literature, studying history and all that stuff take a level of thinking beyond just knowing the language. Once you get to the higher levels, the speaking is the easy part.

It also depends on the school. I was at one of the top programs in the country, so the standards were pretty high.