Undergraduate International Studies

lynxinsider
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:49:48 +0000

It sounds like you’re looking at colleges like Rhodes, so I’ll answer from my experience here. The “goodness” of any particular language offered at a college likely doesn’t indicate a whole lot about the international studies program. They’re likely two completely separate departments with separate priorities, though obviously you hope they are aligned to the same institutional mission.

Things that could tell you our program is good and that you might look for elsewhere: the fact that the dean of the college is an international studies scholar, the scholarly record of the faculty (for example, look up John F. Copper some time to see the freakin’ library of books he’s written about Taiwain), the number of students majoring, and study abroad and internship opportunities that area available.

In the end, what I suspect will matter most is your son’s fit with the college’s environment, so definitely visit as many as you can.