Hey epenati. Congratulations on your acceptance! Unfortunately I'm not certain if Latin would count for language proficiency as required by the International Studies major because it's generally not considered a modern language. If you wanted to continue your Latin education, the Classics department does offer courses in Latin, but I would argue that French or Chinese would definitely be more useful as an International Studies major, or really any other major you wanted to pursue. I understand your indecision between the two languages, as I'm currently having the same mini existential crisis in regards to pursuing double proficiency in Arabic/Chinese or Arabic/Persian.
1.) When are you supposed to be proficient?
The tricky thing with this is determining what "proficient" means to you. I consider proficiency to be able to hold a normal conversation with a native speaker, read something relatively straightforward like a newspaper, and write an email in that language. The International Studies major requires that you take one year of a language beyond the intermediate level, and since you will be placing into either French or Chinese as a first-year you can assume that this means three years of language classes, unless you plan on studying abroad and skipping classes that way. I don't believe there is any point in which you are required to be proficient, per se, but your proficiency is shown by your grade in the language class and what level class you are in. I would argue that the only point in which you would have a deadline for proficiency would be if you were planning on studying abroad (
http://web.jhu.edu/study_abroad/programs/index_static.html.) This is something you can work on with an adviser when you enroll at Hopkins, because there are just so many options it's hard to tell at this point at what time period you'll be going abroad. Some go during the summer, some go a semester, some go a year, some go the second semester of their freshman year, some go during Intersession.
2. I would argue that it's quite possible to be proficient in a whole new language in just four years, especially if you take advantage of study abroad opportunities and don't let yourself forget the language over your breaks. The biggest difference I've seen in language education in college compared to high school (five years of Spanish) is that the intensity of the class is a lot higher. There's a lot more focus on test/quiz grades, and usually the Latin alphabet-based language classes (Spanish, French, German, Italian, etc.) make you write analysis papers during some points, while the non-Latin alphabet language classes (Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Persian, etc.) don't do as much essay writing the first semester because a lot of the first semester is getting you used to the new writing system. Additionally, a lot of first-year language classes meet nearly every day a week, so there's no break from the language where you have a chance to lose it. We also have this cool place called the Language Lab (
http://www.langlab.jhu.edu) where you can go and watch television and movies in whatever language you want, and even talk to your professors in that language. There are also a ton of language emersion programs for study abroad, so there are a lot of chances to practice, practice, practice. From personal experience, I've gone from knowing barely five phrases in spoken Arabic to being able to decently read, (in an language where you essentially have to guess what short vowels are contained within the word because they aren't written out) write in a whole new alphabet, and carry on basic conversations about my hobbies, the weather, my schoolwork, my family, etc. You really do learn an awful lot in a semester compared to high school.
3. I preface this analysis by saying that I've never taken French or Chinese at this point and am personally rather biased toward Chinese due to my weird obsession with different writing systems. That being said, what language you study, like a lot of parts of your college experience, is really what you make of it. There are policy jobs in D.C. that require you to be fluent in Chinese and there are jobs at French restaurants in Baltimore that require you to know French, but there are also programs where you teach English to Chinese students in China and jobs at research centers that require you to know French because they work with the euro/international monetary policy a lot. There's no one language that will automatically doom you and no one language that by virtue of studying it will guarantee that you'll become National Security Adviser. It's all about the effort you're willing to put in and what career options you want to explore.
Now of course the second you read "effort" your mind will probably jump to how hard these languages are going to be. Having studied both a Romance language written in the Latin alphabet and a Semitic language written in an abjad (alphabet system that does not mark short vowels in writing) that's considered one of the hardest languages for non-native speakers to learn, I think that the main difference in difficulty you'll see from Chinese and French is that of the writing/grammar system at first. Non-Latin alphabet languages seem to have a very, very steep learning curve in the first few weeks while you learn the alphabet, (or in the case of Chinese the characters) but once you can read the language like you read the latin alphabet that learning curve tends to even out a bit. From my friends' experiences in languages like French, the learning curve is a lot more smooth, but you still have to put effort in. Neither language is going to be easy, per se, but I will be candid and say that knowing how to read the alphabet that French is written in will make it easier. Chinese has thousands of characters that you will have to learn, (I believe you need to know 3,000 characters to read basic literature) and you will be tested weekly, sometimes more than once a week, on those characters. Chinese will also meet more time per week (5 times) than French (I believe only three times per week) because you need as much practice in the first year as possible (my Arabic works the same way.)
So I guess the question for you is going to be if Chinese is worth the extra work or if French will be just as useful without daily classes and an entirely new writing system. I can honestly say that I don't know what type of international studies program you're going to pursue. The major is structured in such a way that, after a few core classes like elements of micro and macro and history of occidental civilization, you can tailor it to your interests, be them more of a security-type, international economics, area studies, etc. I don't know if you're going to want to end up working on development economics in Africa and need French or if you want to work for the State Department and need Chinese. I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear when you're trying to decide between languages, especially if you are not sure what kind of international studies area you see yourself pursuing, but really that's what it comes down to. Regardless of what you choose, there will be plenty of resources available and study abroad locations possible. There is a JHU in Nanjing program (
http://nanjing.jhu.edu) as well as the ability to spend your junior year at Sciences Po (
http://web.jhu.edu/study_abroad/programs/hopkinsSciencesPo.html).
This is super long but it's just a lot of stuff to think about. On the subject of summer programs, I just bought my Arabic textbook early and taught myself the alphabet before I moved in and it helped an awful lot. You could definitely do that with Chinese, but I don't know if that experience is applicable to French. As far as taking an official summer language course, I don't know if I would take it at an introductory level. You really need a LOT of practice when first learning a language because that is what the rest of your study is based off of, so you don't want to take any shortcuts or rush it.
Hope this helps!
