<p>@ Sleepy - You should look into how your university structures your Chinese program first. It really depends on structure, at least for me. Our classes at the elementary and intermediate levels weren’t bad, but that’s because we did not have native speakers in our classes. Once we hit the “advanced” level, the two classes were integrated - native and non-speakers. It was very difficult to learn anything because the course was trying to cater to both types, which for me made it that much harder to learn anything worthwhile. Add on that I’m on a quarter system and it makes things much more difficult. </p>
<p>If you do take on Chinese, I would recommend watching dramas and speaking with as many people as you can. It’s an insanely difficult language to learn and requires a lot of self study/practice outside of the classwork. Depending on how your university structures the classes, for me I feel I would have been better off going abroad and attending a language program instead.</p>
<p>And also, it would help if you had a genuine interest in the language and culture. Chinese gets hard once you hit the third year and if you’re only doing it for business reasons…I’m not sure it would be worthwhile in all honesty.</p>