17.10.07
The End of an Era.
I'm giving up my French minor.To a lot of you out there, that's not much of a surprise--indeed, I made this little announcement a few weeks ago. I do feel the need however to announce it to the universe and explain myself in turn.
It's no secret that I have an obsessive love for the French language. Ever since I accidentally took French I my freshman year of high school, I've wanted to learn as much French as I possibly could. I devoured each class I took, adding more and more conversational knowledge to my repertoire until I could speak the language fairly well. I love the elegant pronunciation and often find myself listening to how the language sounds instead of interpreting it. I looked forward to each new French class that came up on my path to receiving a minor in my favorite foreign language.
Until last semester. As I've chronicled here on my blog, French 3230 was not my favorite class--my teacher was not a native French speaker, and he exaggerated his pronunciation to the point of sounding like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast--and his class was a waste of time, to boot. Of course, the straw that broke the camel's back came in the form of French 3030. My professor was wonderful; she was obviously passionate about French literature and had a good sense of humor to boot. The class itself, unfortunately, was nothing more than a literature class focusing on France that happened to be taught in French. It came complete with plenty of literary criticisms--to be written completely in French.
Anyone who knows me would also know that I hate writing literary criticisms. I literally danced for joy when I was done with every English and Literature class I would ever have to take for the rest of my life a few years ago. Another thing I hate is writing papers in French--I swear, molasses is faster than trying me trying to put all my ideas down in an organized format while at the same time adhering to the rules of a language other than my native tongue. Put the two together, and you have my ultimate nemesis: literary criticisms to be written in French.
Oh, the sight poor Lauren and Seamus were subjected to when I was attempting to write my first assignment. Tears were shed, feelings were hurt, higher powers questioned--it was not one of my best moments for sure. While I have written a few literary criticisms for French classes before, it was that night I realized just how tired I was of them. I began to wonder why I was subjecting myself to something I hate in the first place--for a minor that I can't even use in my career field? The whole point of minoring in French was to learn the language for fun. I certainly wasn't having much fun.
So, I withdrew from the class and am dropping my minor in favor of one in Women's Studies. It's a minor pertinent to my Psych major, and one that I'm also very interested in. Don't get me wrong, I still love French, but my French academic career is officially over. It was a good run, but I feel I've gleaned all the information I wanted, and now's a good time to get off.
Salut!
† Anonymous
at 6:49 PM
‡
