I faced that question a lot from friends last week as the semester started. I decided last spring that my senior year would be an excellent time to take up Russian language. Why, you may ask, as almost everyone else has.

1) I’m a history major focused on the Soviet Union. If I want to continue researching this area (i.e. grad school) after Bryn Mawr, I’m going to need to know Russian.

2) I LOVE our Russian department. I’ve bounced around it since I’ve started here, taking classes in translation. I think Russian classes taught in English are some of the best kept secrets on Bryn Mawr’s campus. The professors are awesome and so enthusiastic about what they do. And in the end, I wanted to be just like them.

3) Bryn Mawr’s Russian department is actually one of the best in the country. Senior year might not be the best time to start, but I have an amazing opportunity here.

4) Anna Karenina has possibly replaced To Kill a Mockingbird as my favorite book since I read it last fall semester in Liz Allen’s Realism class. I really want to read it as Tolstoy wrote it.

If this sounds rehearsed, it’s because I’ve been making this argument to a lot of people (especially myself) since classes started. Elementary Russian  is 8 hours each week of class. That’s a lot of class time. Especially when I’m writing a thesis.

And it initially induced a bit of a panic in me. But a week in, I can say it’s manageable and a decision I’m happy with.

I’m meeting a lot of people I wouldn’t have otherwise met and the class moves fast, but it’s a supportive environment.

And to be honest, it’s fun. We’re watching a ridiculously hilarious soap opera and learning how to spell our names in Russian.

My friends too have warmed up to the idea, especially after I learned how to say Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Russian. And lunches and dinners are now spent with me teaching my new Russian vocab to them.