Should I take Chinese in college?

[theincrediblequynh]

Hi, I start freshman year in the fall, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be a Sociology major/ Premed minor. However, I'm really interested in learning Chinese and I love to work in Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong,etc.) later on. At my community college, an intro Mandarin class is worth 4 credits! Therefore, I have to complete total 14 credits (CHIN1411, CHIN1412, CHIN2311, CHIN2312) because UTD only takes CHIN2312 as a core. Besides, I'm going to earn Associate in Sciences degree (pre-reqs stuffs) before I transfer to UTD. So there is a decent amount of work being done. Btw, I'm Vietnamese and just came to US a year ago, but my parents speak Japanese fluently and work for Japanese companies so I've attached to its culture and language everyday since I was young, we've also spent time in Asian countries. Nevertheless, I'm striving for differences so I choose Chinese. 

Anyone have any advice on the matter? (I'm scared or ruining my GPA). 

謝謝

 

[Silent]

What is the question? In the title you ask or you should take Chinese, but in the message it sounds like you've already decided.

In the end it's up to yourself to decide what is important to you.

[Hofmann]

Depends on your program. If it's a bad program, you might be better off self studying. In most cases, getting a good grade in Chinese courses doesn't mean anything. You can use the ACTFL OPI to show credentials.

[889]

If your most important goal in life is getting into med school, then maybe you had best adapt your strategy to that goal. Chinese takes a lot of time, time you'd probably better be spending on hard sciences preparing for your medical career. People who succeed in difficult fields are often pretty focused while avoiding distractions, and Chinese would certainly be a distraction for you.

In any event, if you really want to learn Chinese in the future, then self-study with a tutor would be far more efficient than sitting in a classroom tied to the rate of progress of your classmates. Sitting a junior college Chinese course collecting credits just doesn't seem a particularly good use of your time now.

[gato]

Grade-wise, Chinese should be relative easy for you since Vietnamese shares a lot of vocabulary with Chinese (more so than Japanese). But I agree that taking Chinese might not be the best use of your college credits. Since you just arrived in the U.S., it might be better for you to take more humanities and social science classes to gain more knowledge in those areas. Community college grades are relatively easy, so try to use the opportunity to take those classes. Getting good grades might be harder later at the university.

[ricobeijing]

Having taken everything that everyone here is saying in, also know that learning another language is incredibly useful for meeting people and even understanding how they think. Singapore, HK, and Taiwan: you have alot of opportunities to utilise your chinese, (Im in Singapore right now, it is great!). Add that to China's growing relevancy on the global stage as well as the opportunities available, Chinese could of a benefit for you.

Food for thought