[Tprice]

I am about to start my last year of my undergraduate work and I am currently in a crossroads in my life. I cannot decide whether to continue in Grad School with my current major which is history and go on to get my Ph.D and be a professor or whether to pursue a career in international relations. I do exceptionally well in both subjects, to the point where one professor in my international relations class told me to stop answering so many questions and give the other students a chance. The only problem is that, in order to excel in either as a career I would have to master a foreign language, which is my weakest subject. I don't want to pursue something only to find out that the one subject I can't master is standing in my way. Any advice on where I should go from here?

[tigerlily84]

Hello Tprice.

I don't really have much advice for you, only suggestions. The most important thing to take in mind is YOU. Which subject do you prefer? Don't think about the foreign language part. There will always be things that you don't like to do standing in the way of things that you do want to do. And if you haven't already, speak to your advisor about it, as well as the respective deans in both departments to get their input. Good luck!

[Tprice]

Thanks for your response. I keep going back and forth between the two. Hopefully talking to the people you recommended will help me sort it out.

[music junkie]

There are lots of resources out there for foreign languages. I'm not sure what your particular difficulty is, but it's usually somewhat easy to get tutoring in a foreign language.

[hvert]

I found it helpful to take a break and develop my career a bit before pursuing grad school. I tried out different jobs until I found one I really liked. I wound up getting a grad degree more related to my career than to what I had studied as an undergrad.