Main Content

Career Paths in German as a Foreign Language

According to an old saying, language is the currency of the future. This statement still applies in today’s modern job market, and it’s not only related to “language skills” or “vocabulary.” In a world where there are probably still well over 6,000 languages spoken, with ten to twelve “world languages,” we will not be able to survive, live together, do business, exchange ideas, and develop if we don’t understand each other.

In ancient times, philology, the “love of language,” was the epitome of scholarship and education, and even today, graduates of Foreign Language Philology programs are still very successful in the field of “education” when they equip themselves with pedagogical knowledge (methodology and didactics). And, of course, it stands to reason that philologists can be successful in the field of “communications,” which they share with German studies and communications sciences.

This results in the following eight career paths in Foreign Language Philology:

- Research and Teaching
- Communications
- Education
- Consulting
- Management
- Organization and Administration
- Service Provision
- International Affairs

Building international bridges

Professionals from the field of foreign language philology, together with cultural studies specialists, are the “bridge builders” in the international, intercultural job market. They are the ones who can cross the bridge and return successfully, and they stand on the bridge to shepherd the rest of us back and forth just as successfully. The ability to “go back and forth,” to change perspectives, is the basis of all diplomacy, all exchange, but also of successful cooperation in multi-professional, multicultural teams. Stays abroad, whether before, during, or after your studies, are also very beneficial professionally, especially if they don’t take place in a language and education island, but “among people” – from “au pair” to “work & travel” to a cinema project in the Basque country.

Those who study philology don’t just learn languages. They study the history, literature, and culture of a language community, the country and people of a region, politics and economics, and perhaps even the climate. On this basis, they have good career prospects wherever their fellow students from the fields of culture, politics, and economics are active in the international arena. To be even more successful, it’s worthwhile to integrate knowledge from the aforementioned subjects into your own profile.

Analyzing language

As masters of condensed language and text, all philologists (those specializing in classical and historical languages somewhat more than those specializing in modern languages) are trained to read carefully, analytically, and critically. Where does this text come from? How many fragments does it consist of? How many authors are hidden within it? Which is the better, clearer, perhaps “truer” version of the text? These basic humanities skills can be taken to extremes in the field of philology, which gives its students the key to everything related to preservation (libraries), publication (editions), and dissemination (publishing), but also, interestingly, links them to tasks from the fields of criminology (“fake news”) and criminalistics (“secret languages”).

This information is based on information provided by the BERUFENET of the German Federal Employment Agency and surveys conducted with graduates of Marburg University. We would like to thank Edgar Losse from the Marburg branch of the Federal Employment Agency for the suggestions and support.