Need Help! Obsessed with Languages
So, here is my story. In high school, I became pretty obsessed with finance and business. I am actually one of the rare ones that really loves it and isn't just doing it for the money. One day I want to run my own hedge fund, probably after a few years of working in the field (though I will take the first chance I get). I got a 3.7 in high school and spent all of my free time learning about finance and reading business books, biographies of Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, etc.
However, now that I am in college, I for some reason have lost that passion. Instead, a lot of my energy is devoted to thinking about learning languages. I speak english obviously and russian, but I want to speak 2 more languages. I have always been fascinated with German for whatever reason, so, last year (my sophomore year of college) I took 2 semesters of German. Then this summer, instead of doing some business related internship, I am working in Frankfurt in a hotel, where I do pretty useless things (for my future) but I have to speak in German whenever I speak for my entire work day. After this summer, I should be pretty good in German. I will take more german courses, but they will be really easy and won't take up much time at all, I will just take them to "secure" my language skills.
However, already I am thinking about my next language. I don't know why I think 4 is such a good number but I somehow do. I am really struggling choosing either Spanish or French (at least these 2 languages aren't that hard, like Mandarin or Arabic would be).
What advice do you guys have? Learning a language takes a lot of time, and to do it well and in a short period of time takes almost all of your free time. This is making it difficult for me to continue to learn about my chosen field of finance, and I really believe in the Buffett theory that you must continuously be learning to be any good at all in managing money.
What would you guys do in my position? Next summer (summer between junior and senior year) I really need to do a finance internship, so that summer is really not viable for language learning.
I go to NYU Stern if it makes a difference btw.
If you were doing finance/business just because of your passion and not money...and now that u lost ur interest... why are you continuing it? switch your dream job to a flight attendant lolz
Tip: do not start off your life story like that at an interview. Whats to say you wont quickly lose interest in languages as well?
As for German, you did the right move going to a place where youll be immersed in the language (thats the best way to learn) but unless you live in Germany or can practice at least a few times a week back home, youre probably going to forget it quick.
As for your other 2 choices - theres more Spanish-speaking people in the world than french so id go with that. Not really biased as i know both those languages - Spanish would also be much easier however. French is a bitch and a half to learn.
I'll echo zeropower's recommendation above. Furthermore, I was recently in Italy with a bunch of Spanish speakers and they were all able to understand Italian based solely on their Spanish language abilities. The Italians also understood them when they spoke Spanish. My point? Spanish will open up doors to additional languages and cultures, something that seems incredibly important to you.
Why don't you just combine your language skills with finance? Screw the US and come over here to London where people actually appreciate (not to say sometimes demand) foreign language skills which you should be able to use! Perfect fit?
My thoughts exactly, chipmunk. Most people learn languages, but fail to learn the business words in those languages-- are you fluent in business German, or the others? If not, go overseas and take a finance internship that'll get you fluent. Kill two birds with one stone, dude.
Languages can open up big doors for you. I am in Brazil and because I speak Portuguese fluently and Spanish, there are doors open to me that wouldn't have been. I am working on my Mandarin right now because it has become the "differential." I would say your next shot should be Spanish. Spanish can be done in about 6 intensive weeks and it does give you access to Portuguese and Italian. I love both Finance and Languages and I am constantly studying both. If I were you I would use language as a support for the Finance career, because just knowing a language won't get you very far in life outside of hotels, cruise ships, or flight attending. If you know finance and speak a few languages, then you are open to big, high-paying jobs, all over the world. My 2 cents.
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Thanks guys, I appreciate the input and please keep it coming if you have any more. So far, the responses basically all back up what I thought, and that is that learning another language (to "fluency") would take too long and wouldn't give me much (career wise). At the very least, I can take either French or Spanish classes, and get quite good, but of course I wouldn't be "fluent" since I wouldn't have lived in the country for a few months.
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