Spring Break
Changing world demands constant innovation
The opinion of the La Voz Weekly editorial board
Issue date: 11/26/07 Section: Editorial
As one might expect from an institute of higher learning located in Silicon Valley, one of De Anza College's greatest strengths has always been its commitment to changing with the times. In the field of education, this type of commitment entails the periodic adjustment of curricula in order to better suit the ever-shifting career landscape facing students upon graduation.
In some areas, De Anza has excelled at this task. For instance, one of the college's "crown jewels" is its nursing program, a competitive admissions department that awards 65 A.S. degrees on average per year to students entering a career ranked by U.S. News as one of the 25 best in America, with an "excellent" outlook for future growth.
In other areas, however, De Anza needs to consider an update to its course offerings. One division that needs particular attention is International/Intercultural Studies. In a recent study by the Modern Language Association, surveyors found a 55.9 percent increase in nationwide student enrollment in Middle Eastern and African languages, with a 126.5 percent increase in Arabic course enrollment.
Part of this is due to an explosion in the number of job opportunities for grads that are fluent in Arabic - many of these new jobs being lucrative postings in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense.
Earlier this year, President Bush launched the National Security Language Initiative, a $114 million program aimed at encouraging more students to learn languages like Arabic, Persian and Russian.
Unfortunately, De Anza offers only a limited number of Arabic classes per quarter, and if you don't enroll for Arabic 1 in the fall, you have to wait an entire year for the next opportunity to do so. The same is true for Hindi, another one of the NLSI languages.
One bright spot has been the expansion of courses in Mandarin and Persian, but De Anza currently offers zero classes in Russian.
Another department that deserves more attention is economics. Currently, economics is the most popular major at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania, and it is the second most popular major at Brown, Yale and Cal.
In some areas, De Anza has excelled at this task. For instance, one of the college's "crown jewels" is its nursing program, a competitive admissions department that awards 65 A.S. degrees on average per year to students entering a career ranked by U.S. News as one of the 25 best in America, with an "excellent" outlook for future growth.
In other areas, however, De Anza needs to consider an update to its course offerings. One division that needs particular attention is International/Intercultural Studies. In a recent study by the Modern Language Association, surveyors found a 55.9 percent increase in nationwide student enrollment in Middle Eastern and African languages, with a 126.5 percent increase in Arabic course enrollment.
Part of this is due to an explosion in the number of job opportunities for grads that are fluent in Arabic - many of these new jobs being lucrative postings in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense.
Earlier this year, President Bush launched the National Security Language Initiative, a $114 million program aimed at encouraging more students to learn languages like Arabic, Persian and Russian.
Unfortunately, De Anza offers only a limited number of Arabic classes per quarter, and if you don't enroll for Arabic 1 in the fall, you have to wait an entire year for the next opportunity to do so. The same is true for Hindi, another one of the NLSI languages.
One bright spot has been the expansion of courses in Mandarin and Persian, but De Anza currently offers zero classes in Russian.
Another department that deserves more attention is economics. Currently, economics is the most popular major at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania, and it is the second most popular major at Brown, Yale and Cal.
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