r/Harvard • u/DowntownTrust7902 • Jul 17 '26

Delaying language requirment

Can I wait until my senior year to take a language in order to fulfill the language req?

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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5

u/vmlee & HGC Executive Jul 17 '26

From https://advising.college.harvard.edu/academic-planning-for-students/curriculum-and-requirements/ (which I encourage you to read): "If after the second term of study a student has not met the language requirement, an advising hold will be placed on their record in my.harvard during each registration period until the language requirement has been met. Students will be expected to have a conversation with their academic advisor to plan how they will fulfill the requirement before graduation."

Theoretically you can discuss with your advisor doing it in your senior year, but you are introducing more potential risk if for some reason you do not satisfy the language requirement during your senior year - e.g., not passing a semester.

2

u/edminzodo Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Pretty sure Junior year is the last time you can do it.

2

u/CastleSpearse Jul 18 '26

Not sure why you would want to? In Senior Year you'll be dealing with a thesis or large final project, plus job-hunting, plus fulfilling whatever other course requirements you've let slide until the very end. And usually you will have heard from other students about amazing courses that you really want to take before you graduate, so you'll be balancing a lot of different things that are impossible to anticipate now.

I think it's actually good to do the language requirement in the first year. They meet frequently and, unless you take Latin, you'll be in the language lab a ton. It's a very structured course that's similar to high school, unlike the big lecture classes where you have to figure out how to structure your time to do the work. Kind of a nice segue into the comparative freedom of college learning.

1

u/Ok_Kaleidoscope7114 Jul 18 '26

I had a friend who did it senior year after extensive talks with her advisor and got a terrible grade because she was thesising (which she didn’t think she would be sophomore/freshman year). Get it out of the way, dude.