To the Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wollongong,

Representing the interests of the many current UOW students eager to expand their learning and university experience by learning a foreign language but who are precluded from doing so due to the relative inflexibility of our study pathways, we petition you to show the untapped enthusiasm for foreign language subjects at UOW.

As naturally inquisitive and adventurous individuals we are aware of the value of the cognitive and social benefits that come with being versed in more than one language. In fact, we are painfully aware of the reality that most of the world's population can speak more than one language and it is only in a small handful of Anglophone countries, like Australia, where learning a secondary language is not prioritised from an early age.

Many of us have interests, hobbies as well as travel and career plans which would be greatly enriched by enrolling in a foreign language subject. However -- and this is the reason for this petition -- the nature of our degrees and courses of study are such that they are either too inflexible (as is the case in many double degrees) or too strenuous (such as in accelerated pathways) in order to satisfy this desire.

This is why we petition you to seriously consider offering us the chance to study and complete language subjects during the summer session so that we may complete them without affecting our normal study session and without impacting our study timelines.

We sincerely hope you will take our requests into consideration and we look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely,

Culturally Curious and Personally Ambitious UOW Students