Students admitted to the Ph.D. program are expected to possess or quickly acquire a proficiency in two scholarly languages. Our field defines languages in the broadest sense, namely as methods of communication. Recent students have received credit for this requirement through studies of Spanish, Yiddish, and Urdu, as well as computer programming, accounting, and musicology. Students are encouraged to select languages that would be most relevant to their future research and scholarly conversation in the study of religions.