Undergraduate
The major and minor programs offered in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese are designed to prepare students for fluency not just in the language itself, but in the complexity, diversity and intellectual debates within the discipline. Our emphasis is on an engagement with literary and cultural studies through an attentive reading to the particularities of language and socio-historical context. Spanish is not only the second-most-spoken language of the United States, but is a multi-regional and global composite of cultures with their own traditions and histories. Within this discipline, there is room to pursue particular interests and incorporate contributions from other fields such as history, economics, sociology, politics, art and communications. Many of our students choose to double major, combining their knowledge of Spanish with other disciplines. The same is true for our minors, who find the requirements for the minor in Spanish allow sufficient flexibility to accommodate their primary field.
Given that the Iberian peninsula is a geographic entity that encompasses two inter-related languages, as is most of Latin America, we strongly encourage students to study Portuguese.
