Introduction to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
There are as many reasons to study Spanish or/and Portuguese as there are people. Some reasons are very personal, like the fact that they just love speaking other tongues, or the fact that their grandparent's mother tongue is Portuguese. Some other reasons heave to do with work. Everybody knowls that mastering a second or third language like Spanish or Portuguese will make a person perhaps twice as appealing to an employer as the other candidate. For companies and organizations doing business with Latin America, Spain, and the Lusophone countries, it may be strategic to hire someone who can communicate in both Spanish and Portuguese. Besides the personal, practical, or economic reasons for speaking another language you may have, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese believes that studying other langugages through literature, theater, and performance, lyric, and music, film, visual artifacts, philosophy, and other cultrual objects and texts will provide you with deep intellectual insight into other people's worldviews and mindsets. Those insights are keys to developing your social sensitivity, your inter-cultural understanding, and a more meaningful global citizenship.