At some point this view from the library may become a bit *too* familiar.
The semester is really starting to ramp up again with assignment deadlines nearing and exams just over the horizon! It’s a super busy time, and you start seeing people less and less as they lock themselves away to finish that assignment that was handed out four weeks ago but didn’t get downloaded until last night. Last week I barely saw anyone outside of dinner at my hall or my classes, so this week I’ve been making sure to take the time to just chill and meet up with some friends when our schedules line up (a surprisingly difficult thing to coordinate). I noticed a similar thing happen before the mid-semester break, and it’s just something to be wary of 🙂 you’ve got to look after yourself.
But that’s just a little life update, today I want to talk about adding something extra to your degree – a language!
I’ve studied French for seven years now and have got to a reasonable level, so when I was looking at universities and their programmes, something that was really important was whether they had some form of language diploma so I could continue with la langue française. It would kinda be a waste to stop now.
And that ended up being one of the reasons I ended up here. UoA has both Diploma and Certificate of Language programmes that you can take alongside a degree. I’m taking a Diploma, which I probably could’ve squeezed into my three year BCom but I didn’t want the stress of all that overloading, so I’m just going to spread the two programmes over four years. This will usually work out to one French course each semester and three Commerce ones.
So this semester I’m taking French 269, which is the recommended entry point for learners if you did French throughout high school. You may or may not have to do a little placement test (just online) to check your ability. I did, but a couple of my friends didn’t, it can depend on your existing language qualifications (eg. DELF exams).
In French 269 you study French film and culture – which means watching lots of movies, not the worst kind of study out there!
Of course, if you are completely new to studying a language, there are Stage 1 introductory papers as well! Ben takes an introductory French paper and talks about it in his vlogs – so take a look at those if you’re interested specifically in that.
Throughout a diploma, you have to do at least two courses at Stage 3, and half overall should be above Stage 1. This may be easier in some languages than others depending on the size of the department. For French there are enough papers that entering at Stage 2, there are still enough other Stage 2 and 3 papers to do a diploma. If for the language you are interested in, there aren’t many options, or the courses don’t sound so interesting – then you could take a Certificate where you take fewer papers and there’s no Stage 3 requirement. Alternatively, you can study two languages in a DipLang, so you could do 4 French courses and 4 German for example.
Basically, there are a bunch of options, and considering the benefits for both your mind and your career that studying a language brings it’s a very good idea to at least consider it 😉
If you have any questions about taking French, or doing a DipLang, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer
À la prochaine / Until next time!