We all have that friend, the one who can speak more than one language fluently. We gather around them and prod them over and over to teach us a word here and there, usually of an inappropriate nature.

But while we’re gloating over the newest addition to our foreign vocabulary, that friend is most likely going to out-compete us for a future job.

Learning a second language is more important than ever when it comes to being able to compete in today’s global market. Unfortunately, students at Iowa State are not being pushed hard enough to take foreign language courses.

According to Iowa State’s foreign language study page online, students in Liberal Arts and Sciences, elementary education and early childhood education are “required to complete one year of college-level foreign language or its equivalent in order to graduate.”

This can be achieved through taking three years of foreign language in high school, taking a college level foreign language course at another college, through an exam such as the CLEP test, or by passing a foreign language course at Iowa State.

Engineering students are required to have at least two years of foreign language study in high school or they must take college-level foreign language classes.

However, when it comes to all other students, Iowa State’s foreign language study page states that they are “strongly encouraged to develop foreign language skills.”

Though these requirements are a good start in getting students interested in a foreign language, they are not enough to prepare them to compete against international students that are fluent in multiple languages.

A 2012 Forbes article stated that as of 2010, only 18 percent of Americans were able to speak a language other than English. At the same time, 53 percent of Europeans reported being able to speak a second language.

The Forbes article also reported that interest in foreign language studies was growing at the time, but finding consistent data on the number of bilingual Americans today is not easy.

Iowa State needs to increase its requirements for all students to study foreign languages or other ways to communicate such as with sign language. Doing so will increase ISU graduates’ competitiveness in today’s global job market.

Communication is a major factor of any job and is not linked to just one or two majors. The more ways that an individual is capable of communicating, the stronger candidate for a job they will be. The use of technology is also changing today’s society and moving the world toward a shared global community, where you encounter numerous languages and cultures everytime you use your computer or smartphone.

Iowa State offers courses in American sign language, Arabic, Chinese studies, French, German, Russian studies, Spanish and Classical studies such as Latin and Ancient Greek. Any one of these languages can offer students a leg up in getting that perfect job.

Whether Iowa State requires more foreign language studies in the future or not, students should not short themselves on the opportunity to improve their own skills and job opportunities. Such classes are open to all students and the longer you wait to try and learn another language, the harder it will be.

It may seem that learning another language isn’t necessary since English is considered to be the number one foreign language taught around the world. However, it is only the third most common native language in the world behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

That a large majority of the world is capable of speaking English is no excuse to not expand your abilities to communicate. Americans are now not only competing for a future job with someone that lives down the street but also against someone that lives halfway around the globe.