When I registered for classes this semester, I had trouble finding a Spanish class I wanted to register into. True, it was over the summer and I was changing my schedule for about the sixth time, but almost all the classes were full. Later in the summer, a class was added and I picked up the course.
Apparently I’m not the only person who noticed how full classes are in the modern foreign language department. According to the October 4 edition of The Daily Free Press, the MFLL has seen an increase of nine percent in foreign language enrollment this year.
MFLL, however, told The Daily Free Press the extra students aren’t a problem, which seems sort of strange to me. Isn’t learning a foreign language all about communication and speaking?
“There were about 30 students in my Spanish class,” said College of Arts and Sciences junior Adriana Ganis. She said she thought that was a lot of students, but she had a good teacher, so it wasn’t a real problem for her.
The overcrowded classrooms are the result of requirements in CAS, the University Professors program and the College of Communication.
Professor Rafael D·vila-Franco agreed in Friday’s Free Press. He said his classes are overcrowded and he feels he can’t talk to all his students.
The different requirements for different schools have caused this overcrowding problem, and students are often forced to choose a language to learn because it happens to be the one they are most interested in.
“I picked Chinese because I wanted to study, but I had to take this class for the requirement,” said CAS freshman Joanna Ward. She said she thinks her class is mixed between students who want to study Chinese and students who simply need the requirement.
CAS freshman Jacqueline Tom agreed, saying she believed the high number of scholars in the class was because of the intensity of learning Chinese, and other classes could be filled with students more willing to just fulfill a requirement.
Since I’ve come to Boston University, there are certain things that seem to be trying to hold me back from ever graduating. The foreign language requirement is one of them. I took French in high school, but only tested into a second semester class, so I opted to take another language once I arrived.
I thought Spanish would be a good, practical language to learn, since it is essentially the second language of this country. I was actually excited about the class. Like Tom, I chose Spanish because of the requirement, but I wanted to learn it.
That was before I started Spanish classes. I don’t know about Tom, but my experiences with the class have caused me to get angry every time I talk about Spanish. Last year, I dropped LS 111 because of communications problems with the professor. The class was large and I wasn’t in the mood to study — it was a pretty bad combination.
It seems like this could become a pretty common problem for the department if there is still a four-semester requirement in CAS and UNI and a two-semester requirement in COM. Certain majors in the School of Education, the School of Management and the College of Fine Arts also have a foreign language requirement, but it is directly related to the area of study.
Taking a foreign language class because of a major in international business is different than taking a foreign language class because of a major such as history.
CAS and UNI need to modify their language requirement. I understand the administrations believe this system helps give a well-rounded education, but the department is becoming overcrowded with students who only want to fulfill their requirements, which takes away from the students who actually want to learn a foreign language.
Large classes and uninterested students, however, do not make a more well-rounded student body. Instead, it only creates problems for the department and the interested students. Every semester I register for Spanish, my friends and family keep asking me, “Aren’t you done with all that yet?”
I feel so guilty because I want to be done with it and I know there are students who want to learn a foreign language in there. Students are here to learn about things they love, not here to take numerous required classes they don’t care about.
My Spanish class, of course, keeps hitting me with new surprises every time I arrive. The first day, I realized my class, since it was a summer-added course, was almost entirely freshman. It was fun explaining where South Campus was and that I was a 19-year-old junior, not a 19-year-old freshman. It’s also been fun watching them turn into disillusioned BU students from the super-eager freshmen they were.
But nearly everyone in the class is fulfilling their CAS language requirement. Since it’s a third semester Spanish class, almost none of these kids are in COM, where there is only a two-semester requirement. The class is made up almost entirely of people like me, who drag themselves to class two mornings a week because they need the credit to graduate.
Because I can’t be bothered with Spanish, I always feel bad for people like Ganis, who fulfilled her requirement with modern Greek classes and wanted to take Spanish. By stuffing the classes with students like me, students like her continue to suffer. The MFLL thrives off of students like her — students who actually love to learn another language — but is increasing stuck with students like me.