TCNJ offers Russian as an intensive language, for 2 units per semester. First-semester Russian (RUS 151) is offered annually in the fall; second-semester Russian (RUS 152)‚ is offered annually in the spring. Third-semester Russian (RUS 251) is also offered annually in the fall, while fourth-semester Russian (RUS 252) is offered annually in the spring.
In first-year Russian, we use Golosa Volume 1 by Robin, Evans-Romaine, and Shatalina, the most popular college-level textbook for first-year Russian, in its latest (5th edition), together with its extensive audio-, video-, and computer-based activities available on the web at <http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/golosa/ >. This textbook is published by Pearson/Prentice-Hall. In second-year Russian we use Golosa Volume 2 by the same authors.
TCNJ offers a minor in Russian Studies. RUS 251 (third-semester Russian) is required for this minor. Students complete the minor by choosing from 3 other units worth of coursework; they may choose from more Russian language courses or courses in English about Russian history, literature, or culture. For more information about the minor, visit Russian Studies Minor.
Top 10 Reasons to Study Russian:
1. Study Russian because it is a WORLD language: The Russian Federation has a population of almost 150 million people which constitutes slightly more than 50% of the population of the former Soviet Union. Of those 150 million, slightly more than 120 million identify themselves as ethnic Russians. (There are many more ethnic Russians in other countries of the former Soviet.) Russia spans nine time zones and covers about 1/8th of the world’s land surface. It is the largest country in the world, almost twice the size of the United States. Put simply, Russia is huge.
2. Speak Russian to engage in the Russian economy: Russia is the largest or one of the largest producers of numerous natural resources and raw materials including petroleum, diamonds, gold, copper, manganese, uranium, silver, graphite, and platinum. Russia is the second largest steel producer in the world, after Japan and has an enormous timber reserve. Russia is the world’s largest producer of natural gas, third largest producer of oil and fourth largest in terms of the mining of coal. Russia has an estimated 40% of the world’s total reserves of natural gas, and Russia’s proven oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia’s and Russia is the TOP oil producer in the world. Russia is a tremendous market for US goods and services. BUSINESS IS BOOMING! If you have Russian language skills, you can work with American businesses participating in this booming market.
3. Study Russian because it is an extraordinarily beautiful language: linguists say that it is one of the most poetic languages in the world.
4. Learn about one of the world’s most fascinating cultures: Russia is the place that gave birth and room for flights of imagination for some of the world’s most prominent writers, artists, musicians, directors of the stage and screen: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pasternak, Akhmatova and Brodsky, Repin, Kandinsky, Malevich, Popova, Chagall, Chaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stanislavsky and Tarkovsky … to name just a few!
5. Russian combines well with many other disciplines: business and Russian, science and Russian, political science or history and Russian, English and Russian, another foreign language and Russian, engineering and Russian, mathematics and Russian, music and Russian. Russian provides you with opportunities your non-Russian studying classmates don’t have. For instance, a student majoring in biology and Russian can go to Russia on study abroad and work with Russian biologists in a laboratory in Russia, get a fellowship to study fresh water ecology in Lake Baikal and Lake Tahoe, and then go on to Medical School.
6. There are great study abroad options: We encourage students to study abroad and recommend programs through the American Council of Teachers of Russian and through the Council on International Educational Exchange . See TCNJ’s Study Abroad Program for more information.
7. Studying Russian helps you succeed after graduation: Students who study Russian have a high rate of acceptance for graduate study in law school, business school, medical school, and other professional programs.
8. Students of Russian go on to great careers. Former students of Russian are now working or have worked: as engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (with Russian cosmonauts training for the Space Shuttle), at banks 
operating in international markets, as professors of Russian literature at small colleges and large universities, in the peace corps, in major accounting firms (in Russia and in the US), in large and small law firms, in press offices in Russia, Europe and America, in the State Department and Commerce Department of the federal government, in the Peace Corps, teaching English in Russian high schools, for non-profit agencies such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the National Foreign Language Center, or the US-Russia Business Council. Some former Russian students have worked for the American Council of Teachers of Russian and the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) both in the US and in Russia.
9. The US Government needs more “linguists” with Russian-language expertise: Commerce Department, FCC, ITC, FBI, CIA, NSA, Energy Department, State Department, among others, are all hiring!
10. The Russian alphabet is very cool: It has 33 letters, 10 of which are vowels, and the last letter of the alphabet looks like a backwards R, which is of course very very cool:
АаБгВвГгДдЕеЁёЖжЗзИиЙй
КкЛлМмНнОоПпРрСсТтУуФф
ХхЦцЧчШшЩщЪьЫыЬьЭэЮюЯя
If you have questions about Russian at TCNJ
please contact Dean Rifkin:
Professor of Russian
609-771-3434
The College of New Jersey | 2000 Pennington Road Ewing, NJ 08628-0718