It is extremely common in doctoral programs—including UNC’s math Ph.D.—for the department to require proven foreign language competence before graduation. Usually, this requirement is met by the student passing a written translation exam.
A recent blog post by David Speyer of Secret Blogging Seminar discusses making real use of these translations:
The idea would be to take an important mathematical work that had never been translated and divide it up into 3 page chunks, across the math departments of the English speaking world. Each chunk would be assigned to 3–5 students. For each chunk, the grader would select the best translation. These would then be stitched together into a single document, producing a terrible rough draft of a translation, that could be a starting point for future editing.
By an organized nationwide effort, math departments—and any other academic fields using such exams—could recapture those hours spent administering, taking, and grading language exams.
Does this sound like a feasible idea for UNC?
