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The Russian concentration aims to combine, in the best traditions of a liberal arts degree, practical language learning with the study of culture through literature and culture. It provides extensive language training and demanding courses in literary history and analysis. Moreover, the Department firmly believes that serious language study offers broad intellectual benefits in and of itself. In the upper-level Russian language courses, it aims to develop linguistic self-consciousness and a basis for the study of linguistics proper.

Russian is also an especially rewarding second concentration when combined with political science, history or another social-science discipline. Students who complete the intensive year-long program in their first year are particularly well equipped to follow the dual-concentration path.

Students receive extensive personal attention and counseling and, in the new circumstances of post-Soviet Russia, are encouraged to spend at least one semester in Russia itself. Counselors ensure that courses taken abroad fit into the concentration program appropriately. Michigan Russianists are very competitive in applications to professional schools, and place very well in graduate programs.

Click here to learn more about our Undergraduate programs, including Russian.