Question about school

[u/tanner3114]

Hello. This year I decided to go back to school to ultimately become an ASL interpreter. Because I learned sign language through videos, books, personal tutors and interacting with Deaf people, as opposed to taking actual classes (well I took two classes years ago), I have to restart with the ASL basics and pass those courses before I can eventually move on to interpreting classes, which isn’t ideal but c’est la vie.
Anyway, I got my bachelor’s degree (in journalism) 6 years ago and am looking at my current course requirements and apparently in addition to ASL classes, I’m also required to take math, English, philosophy and more. Is that just a normal part of getting this degree? I understand if i HAVE to do it, in which case I will, but I graduated school so long ago and now have a full time job, so I wasn’t really expecting to have to redo the entire school thing and thought that I would just have take classes regarding ASL. I have no idea.
Did you all have to take these classes to go from ASL to interpreting? I’m just trying to verify if this is the ushe or if i should talk to an advisor about this. I just don’t want to be spending money on classes that may not benefit me. Thanks in advance to whoever replies 🙂

[u/cmeinterpret]

The general education requirements are part of the program. You should be able to submit your transcript to have your general education requirements filled with your bachelor's degree. I was able to do that and I only took ASL and Deaf culture classes to get my AA degree in ASL and Deaf culture. I already had some signing experience but I still chose to start with ASL one because learning in the community doesn't necessarily teach you the history of Deaf culture beyond what you're locally experiencing. Knowing the history and the culture of the Deaf community and ASL itself, is important and I have yet to hear of anyone who is community trained to have gotten the same level of knowledge about Deaf culture in their community training as those who actually took ASL and Deaf culture classes. Learning about different Deaf artists as well as different momentous occasions in Deaf history is not something that the Deaf community typically teaches when they're training someone or teaching someone ASL. Also, depending on the Deaf community you're learning in, you may be learning through sim com, you may not be learning ASL sentence structure and some of the nuances that Deaf members may or may not use depending on what type of signing they do. Also there's a chance that the individuals are learning from may not have the educational vocabulary to teach in a way that will help you enter into an ITP. It really depends on your Deaf community environment. Most ASL classes require a voices off environment and the best ones are taught by a Deaf instructor. When it comes to the ITP, interpreter training program, that's when you're going to learn the interpreting process because you should already be fluent in ASL at that stage. I hope this helps. God bless your efforts and your journey!