Why are Spanish and Mandarin only offered as semester long classes?
While brainstorming with professors on our Board from the graduate department of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS) at UC San Diego, HTHI was advised not to have language acquisition dictate our program structure. In their words, “English is now the lingua franca” and experts in this field, as well as professionals in the international business arena, are not necessarily required to obtain fluency in another language as was common in the past. This does not mean that students are not encouraged to learn another language while studying at HTHI. To meet HTHI graduation and the A-G UC requirements, students must take a minimum of 2 years of either Spanish or Mandarin and 3 years are recommended. They are welcome to take up to 4 years if they choose to continue after meeting the minimum requirement. Although we do encourage our students to learn another language, we are not willing to move to a six period day to accommodate both a language and elective class in our schedule
