Explore majors and minors in Spanish and Portuguese, including the Joint Major in Spanish and Portuguese.
All students who choose to major or minor in Spanish will be assigned an adviser based on last name. To declare a major or minor, please make an appointment with your departmental adviser . Allow about 15 minutes for the meeting, and bring with you the completed Major and Minor Declaration form , the Major and Minor information form , and a list of the courses, including semester and year, you have already taken in the department, if any.
You will likely have questions about courses and requirements as the semester progresses, so please check the degree requirements in the Undergraduate Catalog . Additional questions may be directed to your major or minor faculty adviser according to your last name. For further questions, contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Dale Shuger, at dshuger@tulane.edu.
Students returning from a semester or year abroad should contact their departmental major or minor faculty adviser to obtain Tulane equivalencies for classes taken abroad.
Please refer to the Study Abroad Guidelines for general questions about selecting courses and transferring credits.
Honors students who want to write an Honors Thesis in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese should refer to the Honors Thesis Guidelines .
With approval from a department faculty member, a student may count a relevant internship for 1–3 credit hours by registering for SPAN 4560, but internships do not count toward the Spanish major or minor.
If you have questions about first- and second-year language courses in Spanish, please contact Interim Spanish Language Program Director Ángela Maria Ramírez at aramire2@tulane.edu. For questions about the basic language program in Portuguese, please contact Language Program Director Megwen Loveless at mloveles@tulane.edu.
Along with our standalone major and minor programs in Spanish and Portuguese, we also offer a Joint Major in Spanish and Portuguese. All students who wish to take courses in Spanish must follow the sequence of classes, whether they are majors, minors, or not. See below for more details about the Department’s major and minor programs.
Learning Outcomes
Spanish
- Upon graduation from our program, students will achieve Spanish proficiency levels ranging from Intermediate High to Advanced Low, according to ACTFL guidelines, in all four linguistic areas: reading, writing, listening comprehension, and speaking.
- Upon graduation from our program, students will have acquired and be able to express basic knowledge of a full range of Spanish and Latin American literatures, cultures, cultural production, and language from medieval and pre-colonial periods to the present.
- Upon graduation from our program, students will master major theoretical concepts, methodologies, and disciplinary frameworks in the field. Students will apply this knowledge to develop and complete research projects about linguistics, language, literary texts, and other cultural manifestations from the Hispanic world.
Portuguese
- Upon graduation from our program, students will achieve Portuguese proficiency levels ranging from Intermediate High to Advanced Low, according to ACTFL guidelines, in all four linguistic areas: reading, writing, listening comprehension, and speaking.
- Upon graduation from our program, students will have acquired and be able to express basic knowledge of a range of Brazilian literary and cultural production from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.
- Upon graduation from our program, students will master major theoretical concepts, methodologies, and disciplinary frameworks in the field. Students will apply this knowledge to develop and complete research projects about language, literary texts, and other cultural manifestations from Brazil.
Joint Spanish and Portuguese
- Upon graduation from our program, students will achieve Spanish and Portuguese proficiency levels ranging from Intermediate High to Advanced Low, according to ACTFL guidelines, in all four linguistic areas: reading, writing, listening comprehension, and speaking.
- Upon graduation from this program, students will have acquired and be able to express basic knowledge of a full range of Spanish, Latin American, and Brazilian literary and cultural production from medieval and pre-colonial periods to the present.
- Upon graduation from this program, students will have mastered major theoretical concepts, methodologies, and disciplinary frameworks in the field. Students will be able to apply this knowledge to develop and complete research projects about linguistics, language, literary texts, and other cultural manifestations from the Hispanic and Brazilian worlds.
Study Abroad Guidelines
All majors and minors in Spanish are strongly encouraged to participate in Tulane’s language-intensive Study Abroad Programs. Prior to their participation, majors and minors must complete at least SPAN 3040, SPAN 3050, or SPAN 3060, although the ideal study abroad candidate will have fulfilled all three courses at the 3000 level.
Review the complete Study Abroad Guidelines . For more information on study abroad programs, visit Tulane Global.