What It Really Means to Study A Second Language in College

People often associate the necessity of higher education with a certain degree of monotony in today’s day and age. By this of course, I’m referring to the seemingly endless amount of memorization, research, and time college students put into studying for exam after exam. We fill in our Scantron bubble sheets A through E, only to walk out of the classroom with our minds erased of the previous 24 hours of cramming. We’ve done this, we’re doing it this semester, and we understand it’s going to need to occur in the future. I neither agree nor disagree with “the system” so to speak, but I recognize the difference in the type of comprehension and thinking that language majors must do in order to be successful outside of this set structure.

With that, I sincerely hope this is not interpreted as discrediting other areas of study, because personally I was not gifted with an affinity for Math or any sort of Science outside of Elementary Oceanography (which was enough of a personal struggle sophomore year…yikes). I can’t express the immense amount of respect that is due for Engineers, Biologists, Historians, Statisticians, and teachers of these topics. Eavesdropping through the corridors of the Science library, at times I’m unsure whether Chemistry itself should be classified as a separate language for people like me, but that’s a can of worms to pry open another day.

Starting the final chapter of my studies here at Florida State, I can’t help but look back on not only each course that furthered me toward my Spanish degree, but how each professor’s unique point of view has shone through their curriculum. Registering for the last time, I was finally fortunate enough to secure a seat in one of Dr. Brenda Cappuccio’s courses this Spring. She is well known and raved about in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and on the first day of her Contemporary Hispanic Literature course two weeks ago, I immediately discovered why. Aside from her warmth and overall amiable aura with her students and colleagues, she possesses this innate, inspiring outlook on language and communication as a whole:

“What I see in students is a passion, even if it’s not conscious. People who study languages think in a different way, usually. They want to communicate with other people, they yearn to share their ideas, and they simply have a different outlook on life. They put their efforts toward making things work socially by internalizing the cultural concepts to form a global perspective. Though I enjoy my research, I let the teaching absolutely absorb me as my favorite part. I even like doing the administrative end of the job for language students because I feel like I’m making a difference in people’s lives that way.”

Originally from a small town in Indiana, Dr. Cappuccio chuckled while beaming with assurance as she spoke of the first time she showed up late to her high school Spanish class -where an introverted substitute who didn’t know any English could barely endure the hour-long class period. Claiming the last seat in the front of the room, Cappuccio single-handedly helped her administer the lesson to a confused class. Being able to both help and teach this subject she explained, is what set her wheels in motion. Years later in grad school, her passion reignited when she met a graduate professor at the University of Kentucky whom she described as beyond competent in combining both the professional and personal aspects of this subject in a way she had never seen before. Through hard work and the emulation of this role model, the rest of her ever-evolving career, is history.

“Students should ultimately know how blessed they are to be able to communicate with somebody they would not get to know otherwise without studying a language at this level. The idea that you wouldn’t be able to have that interaction and miss that opportunity, whether it’s in a classroom, at the grocery store, or studying abroad, [you miss] the relationships and life experiences along with that. If you were to travel to any city in the world, without conversing with people, you’ll never get the heart of where you really are.”