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Muera, Por Favor

One of the things I’ve learnt in my pursuit of a BA in Spanish and French is that people tend to say stupid things in regards to my educational plans. Because, you know, a degree in anything besides IT or medicine or whatever is a waste of time. Clearly.

Below are examples of idiotic things said to me on a weekly basis as well as either the response I give or the response I wish I could give depending on who is doing the commenting.

“Oh. A useless degree.”

First of all, kindly fuck off.

Is there such thing as a useless degree, honestly? I don’t believe so. Least of all a degree in languages. Many people in English-speaking countries are monolingual; being multilingual is a sought-after skill in today’s job market. There are tons of things you can do with a BA in Spanish and French. Many people are unwilling to learn a second language. For some reason, this seems to be more rampant in countries where the predominant language is English.

Mostly, I’m getting a BA because I love languages and I like to learn, not because of the job I’m seeking.

“Nobody speaks French.”

I think the people of the 29 countries of which French is an official language would disagree with you. About 300 million people on the planet speak French. There is a French speaking country on every continent aside from Antarctica–as far as I know, emperor penguins don’t speak French. Or at least they didn’t in March of the Penguins which is clearly a vital source of penguin language information. It’s also an official language of both the United Nations and the European Union.

“French is useless.”

See above.

“Can you get a job with that? What are you going to do with that degree?”

I’m not getting a BA in Spanish and French to get a job; I’m getting a BA to learn more about something I love. I love to learn. I’ve always been that girl who’s constantly reading up about random things. When I was a kid, sometimes it was animals or dinosaurs or space or Sweden. Sometimes it’s still animals or dinosaurs or space or Sweden. I’m filled with tons of random bits of information about everything.

And, as I said earlier, multilingualism is a sought after skill even in non-interpretation or translation fields.

Excuse Me, That Translation Isn’t in My Dictionary

I started my classes last Monday. I’m taking Spanish 201 and French 101 this quarter as I plan on getting a BA in Spanish and French.

You know your previous teacher has messed you up when your teachers tell you they want you to be comfortable and it’s okay to make mistakes and that makes you nervous.

My previous Spanish teacher was amazing, but he scared the hell out of me (and everybody else) which worked; fear motivates me. The class started out with 40 people at the beginning of the quarter and ended up with 10. He was definitely good about weeding out the people who weren’t serious enough about the class.

When he said gracias what he really meant was shut the fuck up. Once he called me by my first name and I didn’t know who he was talking to–he usually just abruptly shouted my surname.

But he was hilarious and definitely overprepared us. He didn’t want us to miss out if we transferred to university because we started out at a community college.

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