From Portuguese to Latin, Iowa State offers a wide array of foreign language classes, but not all students enjoy fulfilling the foreign language requirements.

While ISU admission policy requires all incoming students to have completed two years of the same foreign language, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the only ISU college to require students to take additional foreign languages classes after admission, said Zora Zimmerman, assistant dean in the College of LAS.

“[The College of LAS] has an admission requirement and a graduation requirement,” she said. “The requirement for admission is at least two years study of a foreign language and the requirement for graduation is what is equivalent to one year of college-level study of a foreign language.”

According to the Iowa State University Bulletin of Courses and Programs, the graduation requirement can also be met by taking “three or more years of high school study in one foreign language.”

The bulletin states that students who have completed two years of high school language classes can satisfy the graduation requirement by passing two 100-level foreign language courses in a sequence or one semester of foreign language at the 200-level or above.

Some ISU students think the foreign language requirement for the College of LAS is too strict, and some students do not like the structuring of foreign languages classes.

“I think that there should be a variation in the foreign language classes,” Hicks said. She said she feels the classes should be separated so that there is a distinction between students who have had two years of study in a foreign language compared to those students who have had no experience in a foreign language.

Lynnette Meincke, sophomore in journalism and mass communication, said she feels college-level foreign language classes are more difficult than those taken at the high school level.

“If I had known that I would have to take another year [of foreign language] here, I probably would have taken it during high school,” Meincke said.

Zimmerman said the LAS foreign language requirement was raised from two years of required study of a foreign language to three years required study of a foreign language when the foreign cultures option was dropped as part of LAS curriculum.

“The college preferred language instead [of cultures],” she said. “[The foreign language requirement] is believed to be essential for someone who wishes to have a liberal arts degree.”

Zimmerman said there are several reasons learning a second language is linguistically important.

“Language has a positive impact on learning and the development of thinking,” she said. “[I]t introduces you to other cultures — you can’t fully understand a culture without learning the language of the people.

“[T]raining in the nature of languages is still at the heart of a liberal arts degree,” Zimmerman said. “Finally, college-educated people are going to do a lot more traveling and exchanging with people worldwide.”

Zimmerman said there is a need for language skills in all kinds of professions.

“We don’t understand why other colleges do not have a language requirement,” she said.

Meincke said she does not understand the policy, either.

“I think it’s not really fair that they only require certain majors to take [foreign language],” she said.