Let’s talk degree-level Spanish

Posted by:
Lab team
on:
August 10, 2015
in: 
Reading time:
minutes

The wait is nearly over for some of our AS and A2 Level students so this post is dedicated to Spanish exam students. Now that the day has arrived you might well be considering taking your Spanish to the next level - university. Maybe you’ve always known that you would go on to study languages and use them in your career, or maybe it has become a recent interest of yours and you’re not quite sure about the career opportunities that will be available to you. Either way, this is probably a good moment to have a think about your future studies.Here at Cardiff Spanish Academy we had a great success story with a student of ours, Lauren. When I first met her (I’m sure she won’t mind me saying this), Lauren wasn’t exactly ‘keen’ on Spanish and had little interest in pursuing it. However, after some regular tuition, sheer perseverance and opening Lauren’s eyes to the myriad of opportunities available to Spanish speakers, she decided to take Spanish for GCSE and to her very pleasant surprise she became second in the class (only to a bilingual Spanish student). She returned to us to study Spanish for A2 Level and is now hoping to be accepted into Cardiff University to study Spanish and History! Well done, Lauren!If you're in two minds about whether to take your Spanish studies any further, let me highlight a few of the advantages of studying Spanish at degree level as well as the career opportunities that follow.Unlike a Spanish evening course or a “teach yourself” online course, degrees in foreign languages are designed to provide you with the resources to gain fluency in reading, writing and cultural understanding, not just in speaking. This can be highly regarded by employers in fields such as communication or professional projects which are conducted in Spanish. For those of you who already know that studying languages is your thing and you want to focus on your Spanish with a single honours degree, you’ll find a vast number of vacancies obtainable within the fields of education, translation, interpretation and diplomacy. Your university will be able to provide you with advice and contacts so that you can make the most of these opportunities.On the other hand, if you are looking for a degree in modern languages but with some added professional training to prepare you for the “real world”, why not consider doing a joint honours degree, as Lauren did, such as “Spanish and International Relations”, “Spanish and Economics” or “Spanish and Journalism”, for example? You’ll gain excellent language skills as well as knowledge and understanding about another field of study, which will make you twice as employable.It’s needless to say that having a degree in Spanish will be an extremely useful asset in this age of globalisation. In fact, there has probably never been a time where languages have been such a sought after skill. So, it’s about time to grab hold of this opportunity and become a real linguist!