Live, Laugh, Languages – 11/9

IA Scholars Kerstin, Natalie, Kaleb, Mera, and Matt shared their experiences studying critical languages such as Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic at Ohio State. I am minoring in Russian, so it was very interesting for me to hear the experiences of Mera and Matt, who both have studied Russian in different contexts. Mera initially learned Russian while living in Russia and Matt similarly learned Russian through meeting Russian people, while in China, because he is also learning Chinese. I learned about extra resources in Columbus and Ohio State that I could utilize to better my Russian language skills, such as participating in the Russian language tables, volunteering to speak with Russian seniors in Columbus, and obviously studying abroad, with scholarships such as the Fulbright, CLS or Gilman Scholarships that can entirely fund my trip.

I am minoring in Russian, which I have taken for 2 semesters now and through this event, I learned a lot about how to successfully study a critical language and how to best become immersed in speaking and studying the language. I am not entirely sure how my future career goals might incorporate Russian, because I initially just wanted to minor in Russian because I had space in my schedule and I took a Russian literature course during my first semester at OSU that piqued my interest in learning the language as well. However, after learning about the Russian language resources that can better my speaking skills, I am certain I will gain more academic success in my Russian language courses which are bound to get harder as I progress to higher levels, so enhancing my speaking and understanding of Russian outside the classroom will better my grades in higher-level courses.

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