Spanish
Many students majoring in Spanish or other foreign languages move into teaching at the secondary level. While students can still pursue this route through the Spanish Teacher Education sequence, students are finding other career avenues with a degree in Spanish. Knowledge of different languages has become increasingly important in American business, industry, and to keep good foreign relations. Many businesses have acknowledged the fact that given two candidates with equal qualifications for a job, they will hire the one with the extra language capability. Studying a foreign language can greatly improve your ability to become an effective communicator.
Related Skills
- Speaking to groups
- Understanding historical language change
- Clarifying ideas
- Reading critically
- Evaluating information
- Comparing translations/interpretations
- Working with original sources in many fields
- Summarizing ideas
- Evaluating results
- Determining the needs of others
- Listening carefully
- Designing learning assessment instruments
- Establishing hypotheses
- Working with research subjects
- Understanding cultural diversity
- Adapting to other cultures
- Reading/writing another language
- Writing clearly
- Explaining complex concepts
- Interpreting data
- Evaluating evidence
- Gathering information
- Organizing materials/information
- Compiling/recording data
- Collaborating as part of a team
- Acknowledging value systems
- Interviewing non-judgmentally
- Reporting and editing
- Reading for content and structure
- Communicating between cultures
- Assessing needs
- Weighing values
Being Successful in the Field
- Research and Investigation -
The search for specific knowledge, from controlled laboratory experimentation to detective work, from scholarly endeavors to investigative journalism.
- Organize: Information Management -
The arrangement and retrieval of data and knowledge, from cataloguing to accounting, from computer programming to inventory control.
- Communicate: Communications and Persuasion -
The exchange, transmission, and expression of knowledge and ideas, from sales to film news writing to illustrating, from teaching to performing.
- Emphasize: Humanitarian Service -
The attention to physical, mental, or social needs of people, from medicine to social work, from labor relations to play therapy.
- Administer: Organization Management -
The direction and guidance of a group in the completion of tasks and the attainment of goals, from politician to minister, from industrialist to school principal.
- Imagine: Design and Planning -
The conceptualization of the future and description of a process for creating it, from the city planner to artist, proposal writer to architect.
Related Fields
Industry and Commerce
- Overseas sales representative
- Overseas manager
- Overseas researcher
- U.S.-based import/export officer or investment specialist
- Interpreter
- Translator
- Technical writer/translator
Academic and Professional
- International lawyer
- Medical researcher
- Health care professional
- Academic researcher
- Librarian
- International researcher
- UNESCO project worker
- Translator
- Interpreter
- Foreign language/Bilingual teacher
U.S. Government
- Agency for International Development (AID)
- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
- Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
- Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS):
- U.S. Customs Service
- National Security Agency (NSA)
- Immigration/Customs official
- Staff /Faculty at overseas U.S. school
- Foreign Embassy staff
- Overseas broadcast staff
- State Department staff/ Armed forces staff
- Translator
- Interpreter
- Intelligence Agent
Arts, Media, Entertainment
- Journalist
- Foreign/overseas correspondent
- Film producer
- Art dealer
- Overseas manager
- Translator/interpreter
Service
- Employee of overseas non-governmental organization
- United Nations agency and project employee
- UN translator/interpreter
- Overseas medical or agricultural worker
- Peace Corps volunteer
- Missionary
Travel and Tourism
- U.S. based travel agent
- U.S. hotel staff
- U.S. tour guide for foreign visitors
- Writer of tourist literature
- International airline employee
- International hotel staff
- International tour guide
- Agency for International Development (AID)
- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
- Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
- Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS):
- U.S. Customs Service
- National Security Agency (NSA)
Education
Approximately 100,000 people in this country work in the field of foreign language teaching. Over two-thirds teach in Jr. & Sr. High Schools, and the rest in colleges and universities, elementary schools and commercial and government- operated language schools with the greatest number teaching Spanish. In addition, a substantial number teach English to those who speak other languages as their native tongue. The teaching of English to speakers of other languages also offers expanding opportunities for employment abroad in government, academic & volunteer programs.
