Exciting news for Arabic learners: Arabic will now be offered as a major and minor! Arabic, which falls under the Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center in the Department of Linguistics in the Dietrich School, has been offered as a certificate program for the past 14 years. Roughly 380 million people speak Arabic worldwide. It is one of the top five most popular languages spoken. Starting this fall, it will be offered to all students who wish to pursue a major or minor in the language. The certificate program will still be accessible to those currently pursuing it but will be phased out in two to three years.
Amani Attia, a teaching professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Arabic Language Coordinator and Arabic Certificate Advisor, has been at the helm of Arabic studies at Pitt since 2006. She initially started as an adjunct professor and was hired as the Arabic Coordinator in 2007 where she worked on setting up a certificate program for students. She modeled the program around Pitt’s American Sign Language program, the largest language in the LCTL Center, with Arabic very close behind it. It was officially approved in 2010. Once Attia was promoted to teaching professor, she began the journey toward getting a major and minor program for Arabic created. She surveyed students to see what their level of interest was like and surveyed other universities to see how their programs were set up.
Attai got a lot of feedback from students who loved the certificate program but wanted more. The program is 32 credits and is more involved than a minor but not quite a major. This presents a problem because some employers don’t recognize certificates the way they recognize other degrees. A few students have used the certificate and created their own major over the years as an interdisciplinary major. Attai sent a survey to students enrolled in the certificate program to see if they’d be interested in a major and was met with a resounding 90 percent yes.
“I just spent the summer in Washington, DC, interning for the Department of State and I was with the Foreign Service, and we had a bunch of different meetings with different national groups from all over the world, especially in light of recent events. And having a strong understanding of the Arabic language was extremely beneficial to me and extremely beneficial for my prospects for future job opportunities as well.” said Zeyad Amr, a student at Pitt who recently completed the Arabic Certificate program.
The major will be a four-year, 47-credit program, and the minor will be 24 credits. The major will require four years of language instruction, electives, and courses in culture, and literature, but students will be given the option of doing linguistics instead of literature. The minor will focus more on the language and involve two years of language learning, culture classes, and one elective. Current certificate students will be given the option to upgrade to the major or downgrade to the minor if they’d like to.
Are you interested in Arabic? Learn more about the new major and minor programs.