There’s a college that has Japanese major in my state. I can get in most likely. I may try going in there after I’m done with a cheaper University. Should I bite the bullet and try it? I’m already learning Japanese on my own. I won’t have to go all four years since all my basic courses are out the way and I can transfer them (general education courses) and I can mostly focus on Japanese. It’s $30,000 a year but that’s with room and board and because I’m disabled I can get special help. I can get financial aid. I just think I can learn Japanese easier if I go to a college.
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Take it from someone who’s got a bachelor degree in Japanese. If you haven’t already looked at the job prospects or if you don’t plan on actively going to Japan then I’m afraid it’s gonna be a waste of time and money. I’m glad that I can speak Japanese and my degree was never completely useless as it allowed me to get higher paying jobs, but unfortunately majoring in a language isn’t gonna automatically make you qualified for teaching or translating it. Basically I would only recommend majoring in Japanese if you can make a living with it or if you’re passionate about it enough to take the risk.
What is your end/career goal?
If you have something in mind or another subject you’d like to pursue, I’d double major or minor in Japanese. Even if you decided that that you want to pursue Japanese academically and get a PhD, you’ll need a specialty to make you more specialized and attractive to research institutions. Linguistics, literature, history, textiles… there’s a lot you can do.
No.
There’s very little a Japanese *degree* can get you.
Even if you wanted to get a job which requires using Japanese, knowing Japanese and having a degree in something that actually justifies the uni prices is infinitely better than doing Japanese as a major.
Don’t get me wrong, *knowing* Japanese can be useful, but there’s nothing a degree can get you that can’t be done by other, much better means (that usually result in being better at Japanese anyway).