Anna Trocmé Latter recently spent a week with The Translation People’s Birmingham office. Here she recounts her motivations for applying for work experience and explains how she got on.

I graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in French and Italian Studies in 2009 and moved straight on to the University of Westminster to begin a MA in Technical and Specialised Translation. The course is intense but enjoyable and I have learnt a great deal – especially about English grammar! As part of my course I chose to take a ‘Field Study’ module, which involves undertaking a work experience placement with a translation company for a week or more and submitting a record and diary on my experience.

After sending what felt like hundreds of e-mails, I was lucky enough to be offered a placement at The Translation People’s Birmingham office in April. My week has been varied, interesting and good fun. As well as translating a couple of archived texts for practice, I have had a brief introduction to Trados (though still have much to learn!), proofread several texts, written some marketing material and much more. I have also learnt a great deal about how a translation company works and found out what project management is all about.

My hosts have been wonderful, making a real effort to involve me in their work and provide me with a variety of tasks. I have thoroughly enjoyed my all-too-short week with The Translation People and, although I’m still not sure exactly which career path to take, it has definitely made project management a strong contender!