As a second-semester senior with less than a month left, there are quite a few things racing through my mind right about now. And while I try to keep regrets out of the ever-flowing stream in my head, there are undoubtedly some things that I just wish I could go back and do a bit differently with my college experience. Study abroad longer, gain a better appreciation for all the cool hiking spots nearby, and change my major -- for starters. But one of my biggest, well, regrets is that I didn't study a foreign language in college, not even for core.

You see, I came in with all the language credits I needed since I took college-level Spanish in high school. In my mind, I was home-free, everything was great -- I never had to take another math, science, or Spanish class EVER AGAIN! And it wasn't really until junior year when I began to realize that all those people who say you should continue with foreign language learning... well, they were right. I came back from my study abroad experience in Dublin, Ireland invigorated and with a passion for traveling and exploring other cultures and customs, including languages. While people in Ireland speak English and only English for the most part, certain areas speak Irish (and the signs are written in Irish and English). Not only that, but I had the opportunity to travel to three other countries with three different languages (Denmark, the Netherlands, and Poland) and I was blown away by how many people still spoke English (and spoke it incredibly well) even though it wasn't their first language.

All too often, I found myself wondering why and how did all these foreigners know my language even though it wasn't theirs? It was incredible. You'd walk in a store and they'd look up and ask you a question in their language, but upon seeing your face, they'd immediately smile and ask the same question again, in English this time. Although I was always immensely grateful for this because it meant there were few times when I was left communicating with my hands and wild gestures to get across a language barrier (oh, Poland), I couldn't help feeling remarkably ignorant and self-centered.

Why should these people be changing their language to suit me, a foreigner? Shouldn't I be the one changing my language to meet them? And how come it's so normal to hear three different languages come out of one person's mouth in Europe, but in America we stop and stare if someone's speaking another language?

I guess what I'm saying is: being a native-born English speaker makes us lazy and entitled, but we don't even realize it until it's too late. Since my time abroad, I became determined to put more energy into learning languages of the places I visit, or at least habits and customs. Before my trip to Spain this year, I reviewed Spanish on Duolingo (a great language-learning app by the way!) so that I wouldn't be a complete noob when I went to Barcelona. Of course, I forgot to learn Catalan too so that was an interesting albeit humorous experience.

But the point is -- if you have the room in your schedule to fit a language minor in, and if you plan on traveling at ANY point in your life, you should seriously consider studying languages -- at least one. I didn't, and now I find myself listening to Spanish music and vicariously living through my half-assed translations of them, instead of feeling confident about my comprehension in a language that I've come to adore so much.

Just food for thought because, after all, your major might open doors but multilingual capabilities open windows long after every door has shut.