<p>For language majors, the optimal choice would be to spend a semester or year abroad in a program in Germany or Russia; the small size of language departments is an issue at LAC’s, but even at large universities, language programs are small, at least in terms of undergraduate majors, especially for languages not widely taught in high school, i.e., not Spanish or French on the coasts and German in the midwest, or Latin in some schools). I was surprised to learn that Harvard (with a Classics faculty of 22+ and graduate students teaching the entry level courses) had 1 Latin major and 2 Greek majors graduate in 2007 (far fewer than Oberlin, with a faculty of 4, who teach the entry level courses themselves except in winter term); USC has essentially shut down its German department.</p>