As someone who spent five years as a &quot;sad French poetry PhD student,&quot; I&#x27;d like to know when French poetry became the single most pathetic thing anyone could deign to study. Probably ~40% of the people in my grad program ended up in translation or international affairs&#x2F;relations jobs solely or largely because of their strong language skills, so I think French literature is a safer choice than English or history.<p>Heck, even my software engineer colleagues who are trying to pick up French are glad there&#x27;s another engineer who can help them with what they&#x27;re learning or accompany them to a French conversation meetup.