Carolinian

Issue date: 10/31/06 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: A. MATTHEW DEAL/THE CAROLINIAN UNCG students cram in some last minute verb conjugations before a Spanish 204 exam. They chose to wade through the hefty foreign language requirement at UNCG rather than taking classes at GTCC.

It's one of those nights again. Students begin sitting around with their friends, papers and books strewn about, and the smell of coffee being brewed. Are they the classic undergraduates fitting in a last minute cram before the last exam? Worse, they are waiting to register for classes.

And as students find themselves eagerly waiting their registration window to open at midnight, some are trying to figure out how to get past a small, but critical portion of their requirements: foreign language. It's part of a host of policies encapsulated in the General Education Requirements (GEC), that was passed in 2000 by the UNCG Faculty Senate. It mandates undergraduates must complete a foreign language up to the intermediate level.

This affects those who are not interested in learning a second language, such as Kim Muccio, music major. "I've heard that the classes are really difficult."

But some are taking a different route and going to other schools to fulfill their requirement.

"Some of them will say and try to go to UNCG and fail the classes at UNCG so they head over to us", said Joe Rowebottom a Record Tech at Guilford County Community College.

According the Rowebottom, students are able to do this through the consortium program between GTCC and UNCG. This allows for students of several of areas local colleges and universities (Elon, High Point University, A&T, Guilford, etc.) to take classes at other institutions. How many UNCG students are taking advantage of this? Not as many as you would suspect, only about 42, according to the Registrar's Office. And while the most of them are at GTCC to take Spanish, most are also within a semester graduating.

"Students have loved learning Spanish at GTCC, some think that the classes are harder at UNCG," said Rowebottom. However there is one catch to the consortium program: students must wait until registration is over to pick up a class. In other words, UNCG must wait until all the students at GTCC register, and then they are allowed to. With that reality, only about half of the students who try to complete their foreign language requirement at GTCC are able to get in.

Continued...

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