As Latin-speaking soldiers and administrators settled down over the first centuries of the common era, their language slowly changed, but in different ways in different parts of the empire. Learning one or more of the Romance languages gives you a means of access to a thousand years of literature and history, and to a very significant portion of the contemporary worldand its future. The department also offers top-rated graduate programs in French and Spanish. They include people of international distinction in all the main branches of the subjects taught, from medieval literature to contemporary French and Italian film, as well as younger faculty of exceptional promise. Many students obtain advanced placement on the basis of their high school work and enter 200-level courses in freshman year.
Higher levels accompany further study of the literature and culture of the countries concerned.
Students who elect to concentrate in Romance languages are often simultaneously enrolled in special programs, such as European cultural studies, study of women and gender, Latin-American studies, or the theater and dance. Romance language concentrators may also apply for admission to a special certificate program at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Indeed, it is a terrible waste to abandon years of language-learningand in this area, as in others, if you don't use it, you lose it. The requirement is three 300-level courses in the language, and the writing of an appropriate piece of independent work using sources in the language and focusing on some aspect of its culture, history, or literature. Learning another language teaches you about language itself.