Curious about how education can set you up for success in the world of translation and localization? 🎓 We spoke with Nicole, İlker, Wiktoria, Anastasiia, and Abril to see what the school taught them. Was it relevant for their job?
Nicole Anne Araullo
I have a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and I feel like one of the major career paths for linguistic majors is in the localization industry. And in the university I actually took several translation classes, one particularly focused on Korean translation, and one on translation theories where we focused on Filipino and English materials. But aside from that, my classes on the structures of languages social linguistics, culture and cultural history also helped me be more involved and socially aware in terms of newly emerging social like how the local culture affects languages and vice versa. These actually helped me hone my localization skills, which really came in handy with localizing marketing materials in ponds and replays and in foreign shows. Moreover, I think that the most valuable skill I acquired in my university training is being critical, and mindful of the structures of both the source language and the target language, since it helped me identify ambiguities really comprehend what I am translating, and convey it effectively so that it is not only accurately translated and readable, but also appealing to the target audience.
Ä°lker Erverdi
Okay, I can say that I didn’t need to study Translation and Interpreting Studies to become a translator, or an author or a project manager measures well, but it made me a better one, in my opinion, because there are a lot of people in my sector that didn’t study this department or anything related to this matter. But they’re amazing at what they do. They just know a lot of stuff. Maybe they were previous previous engineers, so they know a lot of technical stuff. So they can translate better than I do. But when it comes to explaining stuff, and like talking with the clients and making my case, because I went to university and study the subject, I know a lot of theoretical stuff. And I know the background of our thinking, like we as a translator do stuff. But if you didn’t study translation, and interpreting, you don’t know the exact thought process of translation. So I believe that it really made me great communicator, in my, in my work, I can explain what I do. And why I do it better than people who probably didn’t study the subject. I’ve
Wiktoria Agnyziak
studied Italian philology. So my education has not prepared me at all for what I do now, which is, you know, managing project management. Basically, we work with Italian studios, you know, for Italian dubbing, but I can’t speak in Italian with them, because my colleagues have to understand me and them as well, you know, so unfortunately, I can’t use too much Italian Job, but you know, maybe in the future somehow. So yeah, my education has not prepared me. But now I am doing a postgraduate program at a university, and it’s for managing projects. So this thing has been going on for a year now has really helped me, I can’t really, you know, tell you too much. Because my client is very specific, and my managing skills, you know, you kind of work your skills around them, which is, you know, great. But, you know, I know that there are certain skills that I have learned during my university, learning the managing projects program that I will definitely use later in life. But right now, just just because of how my client works, and how you know, it is with them, basically, you just have to learn from them. Though, I studied
Anastasiia Laktionova
English and German in my Bachelor’s course in Ukraine, where I was trained to be a translator. And then I enrolled in the Erasmus Mundus master’s program in technologies for translational interpreting, which focused more on natural language processing, machine translation, corpus tools, cad tools, so on the more technical side of things, and yeah, I didn’t really have any courses in the curriculum, focusing on project management in the industry. Yeah. And I ended up as a project manager in this industry. So I didn’t really have, you know, the specific trainings or anything like that. But I think what really is important is knowledge of languages and the, you know, in general, and also the tools and technologies which are used. So anyways, you’re going to deal with tools and technologies in any role, whether you are a translator or a project manager, Product Manager. So I think this is what is crucial to work in the industry. And, yeah, I think my Master’s course, actually prepared me for that really well, because we work with a few cad tools and also explore, you know, machine translation, and natural language processing. So I feel like this, you know, background really helped me to quickly learn the new tools that I had to work with in my role, you know, and I think, yeah, knowledge of tools and technology landscape in the industry was really helpful. But yeah, I mean, I think that having project management courses or subjects in university would be helpful, you know, since there are many roles in project management in the industry, I feel that it would be useful to have something like that during your university studies. Well,
Abril Ughetti
I think university has prepared me for working under pressure and dealing with with anxiety and meeting deadlines and all that stuff. But it also shaped my language skills, both my English and Spanish skills. And while you know, translators always had to work in context, you always have to bear in mind like the target audience, the target culture, the purpose of the message, and when you’re working in the localization industry, you have to bear in mind, who are you talking to all the time, and you also need to work in country I like to work in context, and I think university has has given me that, like my degree gives me that like I can work in context.
