Author: Katie Hylas
Middlebury's website sings a proud tune: "Every summer for the past 92 years, Middlebury has created a unique linguistic environment, one that provides students with unlimited opportunities to speak their target language." What they don't tell you is that they will do anything they can to trap Middlebury students into feeding $8,000 into their prized summer language schools.
L anguage schools have the potential to be beautiful learning adventures. The language pledge offers a tantalizing opportunity to be immersed in a language in ways that are impossible for a student taking the run of the mill French class, all amidst the beautiful environment that Middlebury offers. It sounds more like a dream than learning. But there is a downside. It costs about as much as the average college student will earn in income over their four years at Middlebury.
While Language School offers a priceless experience, when students learning certain languages are forced to attend in order to go abroad something isn't right. All three of the sophomores in my intermediate French class were under the impression that they would be able to go abroad their junior years. Then - out of nowhere - the professor said that if we wanted to obtain valuable cultural experience, we would have to attend summer Language School. I thought to myself, "Just go to the Language Schools … it sounds so easy." Then the impossibility of the situation struck me, Language School has an enormous tuition that comes out to around $1,000 per week. This unexpected problem can only be compounded for Febs. For many students, the opportunity to spend time abroad is the reason they take language courses. Injustice is apparent when some students have to sacrifice their summers and pay a monstrous fee to reap the benefits of going to another country, especially when they thought this opportunity would be easily available to everyone.
Why is Middlebury so sneaky about the Language Schools? One would hope that this information would be posted all over the firstyear handouts, scribbled on the chalkboards in BiHall, and clearly labeled on Bannerweb. Middlebury values intercultural and linguistic experiences and encourages exploration beyond the bubble of rural Vermont. Yet it has established a system where a startling portion of its students find it impossible to study abroad without devoting a summer and more money than their parents are willing to part with to study a language. Other schools allow linguistic and cultural studies to occur simultaneously. Middlebury mandates that language be studied in a place where the culture is primarily cows and maple syrup. I guess this explains why we only win the #7 'School Runs like Butter' tag from the Princeton Review. Sure, it makes sense that the school wants to entice its own students into financially fluffing up their world-renowned language schools. But must they resort to trickery?
There's a fly in my Creme Bruleé
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