Senior Sarah Margaret Horn loves to talk — both in English and French.
Last summer, while studying in Pau, France, she found herself conversing in French with a Paris cab driver so well that he didn’t believe Horn was an American.
Had she been there to hear the conversation, School of Global Studies (SGS) Professor Rachel Halverson would have been proud.
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of online learning, wearing masks in class and limited foreign travel, U of I is seeing a renewed interest in studying foreign languages and traveling abroad through SGS.
“We definitely saw a drop in foreign language studies, but I think we are now back up to pre-COVID-19 levels,” said Halverson, a German professor. “One of the reasons SGS was created in 2022 was to get our students re-engaged in learning these languages and traveling to other countries to use what they learned so they could gain confidence in their skills.”
Although many students are interested in speaking a foreign language recreationally, mastering a second language also can help further career aspirations, especially in areas like government relations and international business.
Making a Deutsche mark
Freshman Zoë Lindner is fluent in German and Spanish and can also speak a little Korean. She spent two weeks in Germany with her father last summer and her family often talks about global politics at home.
But up until her junior year in high school, she thought she would study medicine in college. A conversation with her family before she came to U of I changed her course.
“My parents said they saw my face light up when we talked about geopolitics and languages,” said Lindner, who graduated high school in Yakima, Washington. “They told me my brain wanted to study medicine but my heart wanted to do international studies. They were right.”
Once in Moscow — she chose U of I in large part due to the Western Undergraduate Exchange scholarship she was awarded — she not only signed up for several language classes, but also became a fixture at The Martin Institute.
Interested in a political and/or diplomatic career track with her ideal job being in the U.S. State Department, Lindner is taking part in a Martin Institute-sponsored trip to Washington, D.C., in May to gain insight into the inner workings of international relations within the federal government.
Looking to fast-track earning her degree in Spring ’26, Lindner plans to complete her final courses online while living abroad, and using her refined German skills, during her last semester.
“Professor Halverson is amazing,” she said. “I had four different German teachers in high school, so when I got here, I was making some grammatical mistakes that didn’t get fixed at the time. She recognized them and helped me correct them. I’ve gotten lots of help from classmates, too. It’s a really supportive group.”
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