Why I would choose an immersion course over a language degree

By Fred McConnell. After a disappointing four year degree in Arabic, it was only in an immersion course that Fred McConnell discovered the magic of language learning.
I did not choose Arabic for an undergraduate course because I loved learning languages. All that mattered to me was travel and adventure, and in that regard my degree was highly successful. But I loathed all forms of academic work and was under the delusion that academics could somehow transmit Arabic over the course of four years via exposure and mental trickery. More...