<p>Disagree totally with post #9’s opinion regarding foreign languages. Chemistry major way back when- after 4 years worth of HS French I did the recommended German (other language rec. was Russian) including a scientific reading course. Times have changed and with computers- translations so readily available. It was interesting looking up German chemical synthesis articles when looking for reactions in one organic lab course- needed to make chrysanthemic acid (as in the odor causing compound found in chrysanthemums) from starting agents (they changed the compound shortly after my time as after too many semesters word gets around and students don’t do the research). Part of the search was to find processes with best yields- grams of starting compounds hopefully led to at least milligrams, not micrograms, of final product.</p>
<p>Regardless of future plans learning at least some of another language is very useful in understanding our own. I never was taught English grammar rules the way I was taught them in French. I was a top student (NMS etc) with an excellent mastery of the language but never taught nomenclature for all sorts of tenses et al- thank goodness. You learn there are other ways of thinking when learning a second language. A chicken and egg issue- does language help determine culture or does culture determine language? Examples include the German use of extremely compounded words, having two or three genders assigned to words that have no apparent gender affiliation, subject-verb-object word orders, idioms and so much more.</p>
<p>Requiring a foreign language has nothing to do with proving your worth. Being well educated includes all fields- not just math/sciences or humanities/social sciences. For those with a science interest getting language credits out of the way in HS leaves more room for desired fields in college. Much better to take the college level sciences than those in HS whereas a foreign language is the same no matter if learned in middle, high school or college (except perhaps the allowed vocabulary).</p>