Why Study German?
In today's job market, practical considerations are unavoidable, and students choose some of their subjects, including a foreign language, with an eye to their personal future. From this perspective, as well as from a purely academic one, the study of German offers some real advantages.
German is spoken in several countries with different cultural, political, and economic traditions: The Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Principality of Liechtenstein and Belgium.
More Europeans (approximately 93 million) are native speakers of German than are speakers of English, French, Italian (58-60 million each), or Spanish (36 million).
As a language of business, diplomacy, and tourism in Western Europe, it stands second only to English, and in the Eastern Europe it holds first place.
Economy: The Federal Republic has the third-highest GNP in the world, is the second highest creditor nation, and every year occupies one of the top three spots among exporting countries.
USA and Germany: While Germany is economically the most important member of the European Union and invests heavily in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America, its economy is particularly connected with that of the United States. In the 1990's, German investments in the United States supported over 2500 separate enterprises and approximately half a million employees.
Nobel Prizes: Scientists from the three major German-speaking countries have won 21 Nobel prizes in Physics, 30 in Chemistry, and 26 in Medicine. Ten Nobel prizes in Literature have been awarded to German and Swiss writers, and seven Germans and Austrians have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Many laureates from other countries received their training in German universities.
Employment: In Virginia's Hampton Roads area, there are about thirty firms from German-speaking countries, such as Stihl, Siemens, and Bauer Compressors (Germany), Plasser International (Austrian), Clariant AG (Switzerland).
Thus it is obvious that a solid knowledge of the German language and culture grants access not only to rich literary, philosophical, artistic, and scientific traditions, but also to many kinds of contemporary economic, political, and cultural developments.
Consequently, Old Dominion's German Program curriculum is designed to appeal to a wide range of interests and to prepare students for a variety of professions. Knowledge of German also complements such fields as economics, government, history, engineering, and computer science. No matter what their future careers, students find that German Studies, as part of a liberal arts education, enriches their professional and personal lives.
