I have been working for the Translation People as a translation Account Manager for just over two years. Initially I worked part-time while finishing my MA in Translation Studies before being offered a full time position.

Having graduated with a BA French Studies and after having spent a year working as a Buyer without using my language skills to the extent I craved, I decided to return to full time education to hone my language expertise. Translation was an area of my degree that I was particularly interested in and which I had considered pursuing professionally before, however already mounting student debts and a desire to earn a proper wage meant that I decided to enter the workforce straight after my BA. In hindsight I don’t regret this at all. The year working as a buyer made me realise how much I loved using my language skills and how I wanted to forge a career in translation.

My choice to study at the University of Manchester was partly practical (as at the time I was living in Chester) but mainly because the course outline promised a broad introduction to the theoretical and practical side of translation from a global perspective, yet also in relation to my specific language pair: French and English.

The MA combined theoretical core course units taught through lectures and a choice of optional specialist course units which were taught through smaller seminar-type groups. I chose to engage specifically in scientific, technical, commercial, legal, financial and literary translation spread over the two semesters. These modules were all practice oriented so as well as a weekly seminar, I also attended a language specific tutorial every two weeks. The dissertation, focusing on an area of translation research or on a specific translation task (translation plus commentary), formed the final part of the course. I chose to translate a section of L’Elégance du hérisson, a novel by Muriel Barbery exploring the application of a foreignised translation strategy where the foreign flavour of the source text is preserved and represented in the target text.

I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the course particularly the dissertation; however I would have liked more contact hours for my money! Perhaps it is the same with all MA programmes, but with only around 6 hours a week of lectures and seminars I felt that I needed more. In addition, many of my peers found the course too theoretical however I enjoyed learning about different approaches to translation and relating these to my own practical experiences.