Comment Language Requirements are a Scam (Score 1) 259
Foreign language graduation requirements are a scam to employ PhD and masters students in the linguistics department. I know a lot of about educational psych and language learning and there was little about the intensive foreign language course I had to take at the UW that could be mistaken as for prepping us for actual fluency. These classes are designed to allow students to pass a test, not speak a foreign language. It actually got easier as the summer went on because each grad student got more desperate for high reviews and thus more forgiving of mistakes.
Whatever you stance on learning foreign languages, computer languages give a window into a different way of logic. This is at least as educational as rote memorization of vocabulary and verb forms.