I took Sanskrit as an undergrad at Princeton as an alternative to Latin. It was hard to absorb all the declensions, to be honest, and still connect to the text. The assumption is that you were eventually going to read Bhagava Gita or some other religious text.

Also, the Sanskrit course got very political, for reasons I could not relate to at all, involving the history of India. The textbook remains on my bookshelf, gathering dust.