Mandarin, Latin, or Spanish

Ok. I have to satisfy a degree requirement. I need to take an additional non-primary language to the third semester to graduate.

In HS I took two years of French and three years of Spanish. I am hispanic partly so general conversational Spanish I know.

I would have to take Spanish 104 to get the credit here. BUT I am not that fluent anymore so I would have to probably start over to re-learn the formalities. I don’t really care for Spanish anyways.

My goal is PhD in molecular and cellular bio. I want to research and teach. I currently work in a laboratory.

Currently I am registered for Latin, but I don’t think that’s useful.

Many of the people I work with are of Asian decent and generally Chinese. That’s why I thought mandarin would be most useful. In my lab no one speaks Spanish. I don’t think Spanish is very popular in a laboratory setting. I think it’s more for like customer service or like a doctor or nurse etc.

I am afraid of the challenge mandarin presents though.

So what should I take? I think mandarin would be most useful. Spanish and Latin would be very easy, almost not worth it.

Any one that took mandarin at uni? Any ideas, suggestions, etc? All appreciated.

 

If it were me, I would look into the FBI, CIA, DEA, ICE etc and see what these gov't agencies are looking at/for. Even though you arent going into these agencies, you will have a language that they need and may possibly go into incase option A isn't available you can fall back on option B.

I agree I would stay away from Spanish/Latin unless you are in an area where the majority of people will be speaking that language.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Latin can be pretty helpful in general speech (English), and it is a fun language to learn. Spanish is the #2 language in the states right now, and I believe Mandarin is the #1 language in the world (per capita).

 

Spanish.

You already have a foundation for it. Hard to fall back on Latin for anything but the sciences. Mandarin would be very good if you plan on traveling and working in geographical areas that use it.

Spanish always looks good on resume in the US. Make it as easy on your self as possible and take something that is going to be realistically practical in the real world.

 

ugh whats with all the spanish? lol

I suppose latin is useful for english. In my eyes latin and spanish are very similar. I just dont see the need to take spanish over becuase I speak it enough.

 

Is this just for a credit, or for further expansion as a scholar? If it is just for a credit, take Spanish. If you want to "expand your mind", take another language.

 

I guess it does look good. But I never even hear it around here. Like ever.

I already know a fair amount of spanish. I can communicate generally. I was thinking it would be good to take something new to expand myself.

 

I guess its for both. I need the credit but I would like to expand. hmmm

 

Anyone else have input? 8)

 

Latin is useless, what's taught as latin today is a shadow of it's former self. It would be a hobby and nothing more, but it might score you some cool points with the nerdy girls at the chemistry party!!

I've go with Spanish because it's easy for you, and with your degree do you really want another difficult challenge just for the sake of it?
Your Mandarin will probably never be as good as your chinese colleagues' English, so apart from daily chitchat keep the technical lingo in English.

Look at whichever country is publishing the most research you'd be interested in reading.
My cousin who's a physicist learned German for this very reason.