If you’re look­ing for a lan­guage that offers access to a broad­er vari­ety of peo­ple, cul­tures, and coun­tries, then Russ­ian might be just what you’re look­ing for. Russ­ian is spo­ken by over a hun­dred mil­lion Rus­sians, but it’s also the lin­gua fran­ca of the entire for­mer Sovi­et Union, spo­ken as a sec­ond lan­guage by peo­ple in the Cau­ca­sus and Cen­tral Asia, from the coun­try of Geor­gia to Kazakhstan.

Russ­ian con­tin­ues to be one of the most in-demand lan­guages among employ­ers in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors due to its inter­na­tion­al rel­e­vance and unique ver­sa­til­i­ty. Russ­ian lan­guage study is a for­ay into careers as diverse as speech pathol­o­gy, com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture, and inter­na­tion­al trade, and it has the poten­tial to open doors to regions of the world you may nev­er have con­sid­ered before.

Program Structure

CLS Program institutes cover approximately one academic year of university-level language coursework during an eight- to ten-week program and are designed to meet the needs of students from a variety of language levels and backgrounds. Some CLS institutes require one to two years of prior language study (or the equivalent), while others accept students with no prior background in the language.

Formal classroom language instruction is provided for a minimum of 20 hours per week. Extracurricular activities are designed to supplement the formal curriculum, including regular one-on-one meetings with native speaker language partners for conversational practice, as well as cultural activities and excursions designed to expand students’ understanding of the history, politics, culture and daily life of their host country.