<p>I’m a high school junior now, but I’m looking at colleges and I was planning on getting the BS in Supply Chain Management and the BA in German then either going into business or pursuing a PhD in German, but a local university now has program where you study 2 years here and then 2 years at a German business school and I’d graduate with the BS in Business Administration (American) and the BSc in International Management (German). My question is: would I need to go back and finish the credits for the BA in German if I decide to pursue a PhD or would the fact that’d I’d be fluent in German and would have taken some German Studies classes during my two years in the US allow me to go to graduate school?</p>
<p>You do not have to have majored in a specific field to go for a PhD in it. In the most extreme case, I have an uncle who majored in German and then got his PhD in engineering. Look at what German PhD programs look for in candidates, and you can tailor your course choices to fit that. Without knowing what these programs you are looking at entail, and without really knowing the PhD realm for German, though, I can’t really help with any specifics.</p>
<p>While you don’t technically have to major in a field in order to get a PhD in it, you DO need to have the equivalent of a major, especially in today’s competitive PhD market. Fluency in a language and “some” is not enough (depending, of course, on how much the “some” is) since language and cultural studies PhD programs often involve also studying literature, culture, and linguistic aspects of the language.</p>
<p>If you know right now as a high school junior that you want a PhD in German, then you should major in German. If you choose that program, you won’t have enough German under your belt to take upper-level classes taught in German at the American school. European schools also tend to be more special-focus than American schools, so in your last two years you may not be able to take any German studies/cultural classes at the business school in Germany.</p>
<p>Also, I’m curious as to why you want a PhD in German. I will warn you that the job market for humanities PhDs is very tight right now, and many of them are having to go outside of their field to find employment. Language and cultural studies is even worse. If your goal is to be a professor of German, chances are good that you won’t find a tenure-track job in that field (although of course this is at least 11 years from now that we’re talking, and more likely 15, so who knows what the market would look like then. But the market in the humanities has been bad since the 1970s).</p>
<p>I want to get a PhD in German because it turned out to be something I’m really good at and something I really enjoy learning. I’ve been tutoring German for 2.5 years and and recently started reading cultural research and some canonical works (original literature is still above my level) and I’ve realized that race (esp Blacks) in film and literature aren’t very explored in German Studies and interests me. Also, I’ve discovered I really enjoy teaching German.</p>
<p>My goal is, yes, to be a professor and I know that studying just a language could be risky (as well as how unsure the job market is for humanities) so if I decide a PhD isn’t for me, I plan to work as a Supply Chain Manager (preferably at a German company) and if I do get a PhD and can’t find a (tenure-track) professorship then my plan is to be a high school teacher (or maybe a SCM but I suspect most companies would assume that my real passion was German and that I’d leave as soon as I could if I applied to an entry level SCM job with a PhD in German).</p>