Learning a Language in School

I recently wrote an article on learning languages in school. The subject is on my mind because I'll be doing exactly that this year. I'm finally going (back) to school to get some kind of degree in languages. I've been studying languages on my own for a number of years, but I thought that since I enjoy it so much I would start to actually put that to use. First, I want the piece of paper (some call a degree or diploma) that says that I know some languages, or have some linguistics experience, (having a website doesn't really count in the academic world). I'm not sure what I'll be doing after that, but I'll be actively adding to the website the whole time.