Is American sign language a good major?

Is American sign language a good major?

If you have a connection to the deaf community, American sign language is definitely a good major for you. This special interest major is the sixth most common language in the United States and there is a great need to increase the availability of qualified ASL interpreters in the community and mainstream programs in schools and colleges/universities. There is also a huge demand on the market for jobs specific to American sign language graduates.

Learning sign language and any other foreign languages is good for the brain. It enhances cognition and creative and abstract thinking. It even has the added benefit of improving hand and eye coordination. It exercises the peripheral vision, training you to become more aware of the environment

One good reason why American sign language is a good major is that it allows you to communicate with a wide range of hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf individuals—including students in mainstream and deaf school or university programs and deaf or hard of hearing residents and business people in your community. In addition, ASL improves the quality of family communication for hearing people with deaf or hard-of-hearing family members.

Is American Sign Language difficult to learn?

Learning American Sign Language is more complicated than learning any other spoken language. Moreover, sign language interpreters never stop learning something new such as vocabulary, structure, grammatical, etc.. A big part of the difficulty is learning to think and express yourself visually. Receptive fingerspelling is probably one of the most difficult things to learn. More so, it depends on many things: your age, your motivation, and how much time and energy you’re willing to devote to it.

 

Career opportunities in American sign language Major:

What can I do after ASL Major? There is a wide range of future career options in many programs. American sign language work for the government and in the private sector, for non-profit organizations, media house and etc.

• Sign Language Interpreter.
• Speech-Language Pathologist.
• Psychologist.
• Employment Counsellor.
• Social Worker.
• Child Care Worker.
• Audiologist.

Some classes American sign language Majors take:

• Deaf Studies
• American Sign Language/English Interpreting
• American Sign Language Literature
• Social Justice and the Deaf Community
• Cultural Anthropology
• Disability in Society
• Deaf Art and Artists
• Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community
• Structure of American Sign Language
• Teaching Methodology

 

Course difficult	72%  ℹ️ In terms of curriculum, assignments, duration, and examination(internal and entrance) American sign language holds 72% difficulty
Acceptance rate	100% ℹ️ Competition to get into the American sign language major is low. 2 out of 100 students apply for American sign language major yearly.
Relevance metric	80%  ℹ️ When compared to other majors in terms of economic impact, job availability, standardization, literature, and research work, American sign language has 80% relevance
Job availability	55%
Estimated number of student	Nil
Number of schools	20+ ℹ️ There are over 20 schools offering American sign language in the United States. Schools include universities, colleges, and polytechnics. See schools here

 

References:

• 4 Scientific Reasons Why Everyone Should Learn ASL
• Why Is It Important to Learn American Sign Language (ASL)?
• American Sign Language Major
• How Long Does It Take To Learn Sign Language? Overview