Russian in demand

[Devin P Browne]

OK, reality check.  Time to chime in here.

First of all, a bit of sarcasm can be humorous, but blatant negativity,
rudeness, and a bad attitude is childish and mean-spirited.  It is
embarassing to read these kinds of poorly thought-out comments in this
"professional" realm.

Secondly, there *is* a demand for Russian these days, although it might
not be such that people are knocking on your door to come work for them.
Evidence can be found by going to Metacrawler's search engine and typing
in the key words "Russian" "jobs" and other similar combinations.  One
will get quite a few homepages out there dedicated to listings of jobs
which require a knowledge of or background in Russian and other Slavic and
East European languages, including the Jobs Index which I maintain for
AATSEEL.

While a good job is hard to come by for mostly *everyone* these days, they
do exist.  One looking for a job in which they can use their Russian must
usually have other skills as well.  The knowledge of Russian might only be
a peripheral, but one which can get that person the job s/he wants.  For a
better look at the situation, read the report written about the job market
which is linked to my page (I can't remember the reports name at this
moment, but it's the only link to a report there).

In the meantime, let's keep the peace around here.  This is a professional
community that we're all supposed to be a part of.  We're supposed to
support each other, not cap on each other.  Honest inquiries about the
validity of Jessica's comments would have truly had their place, but the
manner in which they were written was an abuse of this forum.

Devin

Devin P Browne
dpbrowne+ at pitt.edu