Arabic or Spanish?

CJ_Madison
Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:52:13 +0000

My “S” is in a very similar situation to you except he placed into SPAN 4. His advisor recommended he complete the SPAN sequence requirement- SPAN 4,9, and 10 to fulfill the ESIA req for lang. He is planning on taking Russian second semester Freshman year. His advisor told him it is common and practical for ESIA student to take 2 languages.

The advisor’s logic was that SPAN was a lang he knew and did well in, so completeing that would be pretty “easy”. Although, you do have 1 additional SPAN course compared to him. However, what happens if you don’t complete your SPAN and take Arabic for ex and do poorly. You’re then a little more pressured since you have to have 3 yrs of language and you might have forgotten some of your SPAN.

It’s a difficult choice given your placement in SPAN 3. I’m sure another advisor in ESIA would be willing to talk to you about the pros/cons since yours is on vacation.

Maybe some current students taking Arabic can give you an idea of the difficulty.

CJ