First: Yee! I got into my study abroad program and it’s official: Ich wird nach München fahren! Fassbinder! Lederhosen! Pretzels! Schnitzel! Bratwurst, currywurst, weißwurst, braunschweiger, Schweinsteiger!

And just like that I’m on the fast-track to a German major. Now, I’ve talked about major woes before, but it turns out just deciding what I wanted to do was the easy part. Now I’m faced with the weirdest scenario every time I tell someone about my intended focus of study. Let me show you.

EXT. CLAREMONT COLLEGES PARTY—NIGHT. JULIA, the young, beautiful heroine, is chatting with a random person.

JULIA: That’s really interesting. So, what’s your major?

OTHER PERSON: Oh, you know, econ. And gov. Gov and econ and politics and gov.

JULIA: That must be really interesting.

OP: Totally. Once I graduate, I’m going to get a job either at the White House or working for William F. Buckley. So what’s your major?

JULIA: Oh, I’m a German major, Poli-sci minor.

OP: Cool. (OP takes a swig of his/her drink. There is a long pause.) So what are you planning on doing with that?

Oh. Um. Well. It turns out that there are two kinds of majors: the ones the general public consider useful, and those they consider not-so-useful. Gov is useful. Economics is useful. Computer Science is really useful, especially since The Social Network got so many Oscar nominations. These majors are useful in the “real world”, people say. Translation: you can make big bucks off these majors.

Like the title of this blog entry says, people judge you based on your major. And if you have one that other people can’t immediately see being useful in the real world, girl, you gonna get judged hard. I was being silly in my little script above, but this type of thing happens with alarming regularity, even though it’s totally dumb.

Well, right here on this blog, I’m about to state my case for why having one of these “useless” languages is actually quite useful. Potential employers, fellow students, parents, everyone: listen up!

• While other people learn about one facet of a culture, whether that’s literature, politics, economics, or art, I’m responsible for all of that within the German-speaking world. And from Goethe to Merkel to Engels to Klimt, I’ve got a lot to cover. AND I have to cover it all in my second language (well, third, if you count my abominable Spanish.)
• I can write and speak in two languages in at a college level. Speaking German is important especially in economic fields: you just try to finagle the European financial crisis without speaking the language.
• Words that are three lines long don’t intimidate me, and neither do umlauts.

And on and on. But these sorts of characteristics aren’t just limited to us misunderstood German majors, but to all of the misunderstood majors. So buck up, you Classics majors! French studies ladies, holla if you hear me! Self-designed majors in Gender and Gastronomy of the Kamchatka Peninsula, go get ‘em! And then next time someone asks you, “so what are you planning to do with that?” just shrug and go about your way-more-interesting, way-more-fun business, you creative, clever cookies, you.

Bis später,

Julia