burliuk

All right, here's some backstory: I'm a junior English major, I did very badly in my second year of college and so while my transcript will show a massive uphill rise at the end (which is good), I'm relatively unlikely to have more than a 3.0 upon graduating. I also have no foreign language experience (this will be important in a minute). So I've been researching English programs because I'm interested in the field of Russian literature. Note, all the Russian stuff I have read has been in English translation. Basically I've been researching English programs, until I finally realized that what I need is a Comp. Lit. program. I was thrilled to find out this major was available, which should give you an indication of how thorough my college's department is on any foreign literature. Here's my problem: I have no foreign language experience, and I have a year and a half in which to learn one. My school also does not offer Russian, although I've been advised that if I applied to a Masters' program in a school with a Russian language department, I would have enough to get into a Comp. Lit. Ph.D. program. In the meantime, I could take German, which my college offers now. But my dilemma is that most Comp. Lit programs want an M.A. in Comp Lit going in, and I can't even apply to those programs without fluency in Russian, which I am unable to get until I get to another college. I had been under the impression that Masters programs were more about language training (as they are for English) and apparently in Comp Lit they want one (sometimes two) languages besides English when applying. Compounding this is my low GPA, which means that my options for Comp Lit programs are already thin. tl;dr What would you do in my situation? My gut instinct is to keep going with an M.A. in English, learn German and get as much Russian as I can, then see if I can get into a Comp Lit program elsewhere, but is this the right move?