Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!labrea!sri-unix!garth!curry
From: curry@garth.UUCP (Ray Curry)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: foreign language requirements for PhDs
Message-ID: <2634@garth.UUCP>
Date: 15 Mar 89 18:47:03 GMT
References: <7287@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <2851@eos.UUCP> <401@rb-dc1.UUCP> <21572@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <1280@wpi.wpi.edu> <134@cs.columbia.edu> <1304@wpi.wpi.edu>
Reply-To: curry@garth.UUCP (Ray Curry)
Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 26

In article <1304@wpi.wpi.edu> lfoard@wpi.wpi.edu (Lawrence C Foard) writes:
>In article <134@cs.columbia.edu> kan@cs.columbia.edu (Victor Kan) writes:
>>
>>Literacy in a foreign language for PhDs is not just some
>>arbitrary, nice idea for a magic solution to the world's problems
>>as Lawrence Foard suggests.

>a computer langauge, relativity, electonics, geology, astronomy, cooking,
>yoga, biology, advanced math, machining, carpentry, zoology, weather
>forcasting, typing, navigation, parachuting, etc. 
> It is quite possible that all of these things would come in useful at some
>time in ones life, but they should not be required to get a Degree. I am for

When I was in college, the language requirement for PHD candidates was
that you had to have the ability to read a scientific paper and get some
portion of what was being said.  You did not have to be fluent in the
language, but the languages of choice were limited to those where
scientific publications were common.  French, and German with Russian 
a fair third were the languages of choice.  Since the terms used were
mostly transliterated into the other languages, the requirement was
generally satisfied by a one quarter class in reading such publications.
German of course was by far the easiest.  To some extent the ease of
meeting the requirement may have been the reason for it being dropped.
I took Russian in high school and took it in a regular class in college
to meet my requirement but was the only one I knew that did.  Everyone
else took the one quarter quicky.