Bachelor of Arts - German

The German Program at DePaul offers students an extensive background in German and Austrian culture, language, and literature, and prepares them to think and work in an increasingly globalized world. German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, and German-speaking countries are among the most influential engines driving culture, business, and politics today. The German-speaking world is rich and multifaceted – these are the cultures of Mozart, Goethe, Freud, Kafka, and Marx – and the study of German also explores the crucial questions of memory and history particular to the German past.

A degree in German from DePaul offers a broad-based humanities education with crucial skills in reading, writing, critical thinking, and intercultural communication useful for any number of pursuits after college. Several of the German students have been awarded prestigious grants and scholarships, including multiple Fulbright grants and Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarships. Graduates have gone on to pursue careers in government, business, the public humanities, scientific research, and education, both in the US and abroad, while others have enrolled in prestigious graduate programs in the humanities, medicine, and law.

The courses in DePaul’s German program give students the opportunity to attain advanced language proficiency while studying all aspects of German literature and culture. Topics of the regular GER course offerings include:

Students expand upon the fundamental skills learned in the German core by choosing one of three concentrations: German Studies, German Language and Literature, or Commercial German. Many German students pair German with another major, and several courses from these double majors can potentially be double-counted with the concentrations in the German major.

The German Program offers its students two study abroad options: a long-term study abroad program to Vienna, and a short-term, human rights-oriented program in Berlin. German students are encouraged to participate in one of these programs, both in order to grow linguistically and also to expand their cultural understanding of the German-speaking world and culture today. The German Program also has its own chapter of the German Honorary Society Delta Phi Alpha and is affiliated with the student-led organization DePaul Deutsch Club.