<p>Amesie, if this student is the kind of top history student who is a plausible applicant to PhD programs, by the time she gets to her junior/senior year she is not going to find herself in large lecture courses or taught by TAs even if she goes to a huge school. I attended a large, research-intensive university as an undergraduate and had no problems meeting professors; many of them attended my wedding. In fact my undergraduate thesis advisor, and my husband’s, got into a heated discussion at the reception, after a number of drinks, about which of the two of us had “married down” intellectually. </p>
<p>It was also an advantage to be able to accelerate into PhD coursework while an undergraduate, and to get to know PhD students who were only a few years ahead of me.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with you that any student headed for grad school hoping to make a career in academia should get as much mentoring as she possibly can. Many students do not exploit their faculty to the extent that they could.</p>
<p>As far as the language question goes: it’s not going to be the end of the world if you need to take a Spanish course in your freshman year. You have plenty of time. You can improve your language skills by self-study as well as through classes–either starting a new language or beefing up your Spanish beyond what you get in HS. If you become a professional historian you will eventually need more language background, but without knowing what you might specialize in, it’s hard to know which language(s) would be helpful.</p>
<p>When I’ve done two languages at the same time, I’ve had an easier time if they were not closely related. For instance, French and German or German and Latin was OK; Spanish and Italian was confusing. But YMMV.</p>
<p>Beware of starting a third language. I used to be completely fluent in Spanish. Then I took German. The German completely messed up my spoken Spanish, and vice versa. My brain cells for Spanish are hopelessly intermingled with those for German, which results in spoken language that is a combination of the two.</p>
<p>Some people have the knack to learn multiple languages, but often the languages were learned when they were children. After you reach adulthood, your brain is less able to deal with it.</p>
<p>I agree with Jingle here about large vs. small schools. As a professor, my experience has been that despite class size in a research university, few students come to see us and get involved in research (sure they come to office hours for help but not to discuss PhD plans or get involved in research). With a bit of initiative, a talented student at a large research university can easily get to know and work with most faculty (heck even my highschooler has gotten mentors on her own from a large research uni!). In a smaller LAC, I think the competition for such attention might actually be harder with many more students desiring high-touch and more likely to be seeking out the professors with a PhD in mind.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I can generalize about LACs and research universities as types, but the evidence I’ve seen recently is that students who seek it out can get great mentorship at research universities (and, of course, more opportunities, because there are more things happening), but faculty at LACs are much more likely to reach out to talented students on their own motion, and that LACs may well go an extra mile for their students. </p>
<p>Last year, I met a student who had been completely funded by her elite LAC to accompany some of her professors to the national convention in the field where she was thinking of maybe applying to graduate school. I was pretty impressed. I’ve also had occasion to listen to faculty of a small department at a top LAC talk about their current students, and I was bowled over by how well the faculty knew them.</p>
<p>^ i hate this research uni vs. LAC argument. I think both can work perfectly fine and the best place depends on the student and also the field. There are lots of generalizations that are not necessarily valid and usually overly simplistic. I teach in a gigantic school and we know all of our majors by name, we have a strong PhD program but also involve interested undergrads in our research (and and yes every year I fully fund an undergraduate to come to our conference and most of us mentor them into graduate school). It is not at all unusual, it just doesn’t fit the stereotype. Any student who stands out enough to get into a great LAC also as the outstanding qualities and wherewithall to seek out and be brought under the wing of faculty at a research university. But they should go where they feel most comfortable.</p>