The first class I am taking this semester is Russian II. As you know, Hope College is a liberal arts school, so you will have to take a second or for some people, a third or fourth language. It does not have to be a Russian. You can take Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and German as well. But as you might guess Spanish is the most popular one because most U.S. students take Spanish in high school.
Nevertheless, if you are interested in completely different and unique language and you are not big fan of Mandarin Chinese, then Russian is the way to go. If you do decide to Russian, it is a sort of one year course. Let me explain. If you want to take Spanish I or French II, you can do so any semester. And you can even pick different time blocks. But if you want to take Russian I than you can take it only in the fall and in order to get to Russian II, you must take Russian I beforehand. Logically, Russian II is taught only in the spring, since Russian I is only taught in the fall.
The advantage of taking Russian is the fact people it is not the most popular language between students, and actually many students even do not know that one can study Russian at Hope, so my class is only 7 students. It is basically like having a personal tutor. Also, you may know Russians use different alphabet called Azbuka, and you get to learn how to read it, which very cool and unique skill to have.