A little over a year ago, I was spending a not insignificant amount of time on my university’s career portal. My impending graduation was both something I was excited about and a scary deadline by which it felt like I had to have something figured out. I think I saved about 50 jobs in the portal that fall, and being a Language Assistant was one of them, but I didn’t start thinking about it seriously until Christmas break.
I spent the last four years at Trinity College Dublin, studying history and political science. And while I loved my subjects, I wasn’t having a lot of success in finding jobs in my field. So I went back to the drawing board and thought about the things that I had enjoyed during college. I’m originally from the United States, and it was exhilarating and intimidating to move abroad at 18. But I absolutely loved it. Ireland became a second home and, although I was ready to try something new, I wanted to find a way to stay in Europe.
At the same time, I was feeling the need to learn a second language. I had always been impressed by my classmates who were fluent in three, and occasionally four, languages, and I was slightly self-conscious about only speaking English. More practically, I had also realized that I wanted to pursue law long-term and an internship at my local District Attorney’s office had made it clear to me that we need more bilingual people in the American criminal justice system. I had studied Spanish in middle and high school, and it’s the most common language other than English used in my region, so dusting off the cobwebs and improving felt like the obvious choice.
Most importantly, though, one of my most rewarding experiences in university was working with two volunteer programs that provided ESL training to refugees. I had the opportunity to lead conversational classes with adults and tutor students one-on-one. I felt like teaching English was something that both enjoyed and had experience in. All this taken together made Meddeas the obvious choice for me.
So after I had submitted my application, interviewed, and was accepted into the program, it was time to prepare. I started reading short stories and young adult books in Spanish to improve my skills and to review my ESL teaching notes from two years before. But mostly I did paperwork. I had applied for a visa before, but Spain’s process was a lot more complicated than Ireland’s had been and, at times, it was very overwhelming. For one thing, I had underestimated how stressful it would be to put my passport in the mail and trust that I would get it back in “between 4 and 8 weeks,” and it was difficult when the consulate and other organizations were not very clear on when I could expect certain things to be completed. But it did work out, and my dad and I flew to Madrid at the end of September. For about a week, we mixed sightseeing and apartment hunting until I had a place to live and was ready to start school. And now, a few months into my role as a Language Assistant and after my university graduation, the deadline I had been both excited for and dreading, I’m more confident than ever in my decision to become a Meddeas Language Assistant.
Author: Mary W.