COLUMBIA, Md. —Some Maryland high school students are not satisfied mastering just one language.
So, they are spending part of their summer on a college campus learning Chinese and Arabic.
It's an intense five-week program on the campus of Howard Community College where students from across the state step out of their comfort zone.
"I have a real interest in languages, and I'm taking French in school and I'm studying Latin next year, and (I) think languages are like something that really interest me," student Ava Lehrman said.
Lehrman plans to add Mandarin Chinese to that list of languages.
"This is the summer and they choose to study during the summer a world language and when you talk to them, some of them have actually self-taught the language before they even came to us to be prepared," Claudia Dugan with Howard Community College said.
The language courses are part of the Startalk Program.
"Ever since I was little I always had a love of languages," student Amaya Horace said. "Actually my grandpa starting taking Chinese when I was 2, so I started taking Chinese, also. Since then, I've adopted it to other languages."
One of the former students in this summer program took what he learned and turned it into a career.
Jason Rodrigus studied Arabic in college and has since landed a job with a cyber security company.
"Arabic kind of deals with national security," Rodrigus said. "Cyber security obviously deals with tech and computer security and that's kind my whole interest."
Rodrigus said he is passing along his passion and knowledge to students determined to at least master the basics.
"It was hard learning the alphabet but it got easier and easier so now it's better now and I can manage better," student Noah Sann said.
