2020 Modern Languages Graduates

This is probably lots of people’s stories, but here goes! Studying French at William & Mary gave me the tools that I needed to spend junior year in France and succeed educationally and personally in the country. No matter how cliché, this really has altered my life plans because my short-term career dream is simply finding some sort of employment in France at least for a while, however long that ends up being. And that’s exciting.

The professors in the French department are just amazing and they’ve done so much helping me learn and figure out my interests in French studies. It's been massively rewarding academically. 

The study abroad office also did so much for me and I feel so lucky to have had access to the excellent programs I participated in in Montpellier and Strasbourg. The professors and friends I met in these places stay in my thoughts daily.  

I’d also like to say how much I look up to the fantastic Martine Fize who runs the housing program in Montpellier. She's great! I believe she is technically an employee of William & Mary and she was so lovely and welcoming to me.   

Emma Brigaud is graduating from William & Mary with a B.A. in French and a B.B.A. in Marketing with a focus on Innovation and Design. She took advantage of the many opportunities the campus has to offer to continue learning, pursue her passions, and form meaningful friendships. Emma has loved being in Reveille A Cappella since her freshman year, with fond memories of touring during fall break and Wren 10 concerts, and she also enjoyed being part of a sisterhood in Kappa Delta sorority. She pursued her passion for art and fashion with Rocket Magazine, and practiced her entrepreneurial and public speaking skills by winning pitch competitions at the Miller Entrepreneurship Center. Emma is looking forward to a career at the intersection of design and international business, and gained leadership experience as the VP of Creative Services for Agency 1693. Emma would like to express her gratitude for the support of the Modern Language department, and especially her peers and the faculty in the French department. Her time at William & Mary has enriched her life, and she is excited to stay in touch and continue to be a part of the community as an alumna.

I came to William & Mary intending to major in Biology on the pre-med track. Having taken Chinese classes in high school, I decided to continue studying the language when I arrived on campus. My freshman year classes with Professor Su encouraged me to continue taking classes in the department. During my sophomore year, I ventured into the literature courses offered and decided to turn my interest in Chinese into a major. My experiences in the program have helped me to extend beyond the language and into a greater understanding of the breadth and depth of what constitutes “China,” the process by which the modern sociopolitical China came about, and how to understand China through both its literature and cinema.

Because of the opportunities available through the Chinese department, I spent the summer of 2018 participating in Professor Hill’s study abroad program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. This opportunity led me to apply for and receive the US Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship to spend the summer of 2019 participating in a fully-funded intensive language program in Xi’an at Shaanxi Normal University.

This May, I am graduating with a degree in Chinese Language & Literature as well as a minor in Biochemistry. After working for a few years, I intend to apply to medical school. I hope to work as a physician in Chinese-speaking communities, whether that be in the United States or abroad. I am grateful to my advisor, Professor Hill, and the rest of the William & Mary Chinese department for their guidance and encouragement these past four years!

祝大家万事如意!

Running from Miller Hall to Washington in less than 10 min is hands down the biggest achievement of my undergraduate path at W&M. Ha jokes aside, while the walk was my least favorite part, one of the highlights of my time at the college has definitely been taking French classes. I did not come to W&M planning on majoring in French & Francophone Studies but after taking my first class with Prof. Compan on post-colonialism literature, I was sold. From there, I went on to take at least one French class every single semester and I have enjoyed every single one of them. The French Department has also allowed me to meet absolutely incredible people who are now my closest friends. The most meaningful moment was definitely being a Teaching Assistant for the French department for 5 semesters as well as a student grader for multiple professors within the department. Post-graduation, I plan to go into consulting and further down the line in the International Development field where I intend to use both my Business and language background. A huge thank you to my professors who helped shape my passion for the language and special mention goes to Prof. Magali Compan, Prof. Michael Leruth, Prof. Angela Leruth, Prof. Antoine Caille, and Prof. Deborah Lee-Ferrand. Thank you for being amazing professors, supporters, and friends to me. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you guys!

I came to W&M knowing I wanted to be a French major. I had absolutely no idea that that would take me to such a variety of geographical and intellectual places far away from Williamsburg. The summer of 2017, after two semesters of Spanish, I lived with a family in Granada for three weeks and examined the effects of the history of Moorish people in the area with the modern anti-Arab sentiments. Spring semester of 2018, I took my six years of French, three semesters of Spanish, and one semester of Standard Arabic with me to study in Rabat, Morocco. There I lived with a host family, travelled with friends, and picked up a little bit of Moroccan Arabic: enough to haggle at the markets over shoes. Spring 2019, I took my last class with my advisor, Professor Compan, a COLL 300 focusing on cultural memory. A handful of us went to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe for spring break to study the physical traces of the island’s memory of slavery. With all of these incredible international experiences, I decided that for my senior year, I would close out with a little bit about Metropolitan France. I completed my Honors Thesis on gendered heroic archetypes seen through Joan of Arc as a cinematic figure. In my freshman seminar with Professor Compan, she opened my eyes to the wealth of diversity within the Francophone world, and while I stayed a “French” major, my focus shifted toward international francophone postcolonial and feminist thought. While I am pursuing careers in the environmental field, I am looking to a more social justice aspect, which I can credit directly to my experience with the French department, which all started in that freshman seminar. Merci àtous, et a bientôt!

When I look back on my time at William & Mary, one moment that I will never forget is when as a first semester Freshman I enrolled in a 300-level German philosophy course and its once weekly German conversation hour. I had never taken any sort of philosophy course before and though this experience could have been disastrous, it was one of the best classes I've ever taken at William & Mary. The professor who taught it was passionate and supportive, my fellow students were friendly and encouraging, and I learned more from that course than I ever anticipated. The closeness and support I found in this class is what enticed me to be a German major, and after 3 years in the department, I can soundly say that was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Being a part of German Studies at William & Mary has introduced me to students who have become good friends, professors who have become personal mentors, and provided me with opportunities that have been invaluable. After graduation I will be embarking on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Gratz, Austria where I am confident that the skills I have learned from the German Studies Department, and MDLL Department at large, will serve me well. After this I intend on going to law school and though I haven't decided on a specific career path yet, I will never forget what I have learned from German Studies at William & Mary.

Initially coming to William & Mary, I had no intentions of continuing my Chinese studies, as I thought classes would be too hard and one degree would be enough work. However, like every facet of William & Mary’s campus I’ve experienced, the encouragement and support were overwhelming. What started as a Chinese minor was scrambled to fit a double major in my schedule with my Marketing Degree. I’m so thankful for this support and “push” to take the extra classes senior year in order to get the dual degree.

So now thinking back on all of my courses in the Chinese department, my favorite memories have to be some of the final project videos we had to make. They were hard, uncomfortable to film at times, but rewarding and entertaining to make with friends that I had the chance to take courses with each semester. Post “virtual” graduation, I will be moving up to New York City to work as a Client Services Associate at AlphaSights. What first sparked my interest in this role, actually, was that they had Mandarin Associate roles as well. Although I don’t quite fit the qualifications of the role yet, I plan to continue studying and hope to one day mesh my Marketing and Chinese majors into a future career!

Something many of my friends have found funny over the years has been my connection with the German department at William & Mary. For years, everyone, including many of the faculty members, thought I was majoring in the department. Perhaps it was because I could often be found in Washington Hall or stretched out with my German readings on the Sunken Garden, or because I tried to sign up for every class that Professor Taylor and Professor Gully offered. However, until the spring semester of my junior year, it was just an assumption. Then one day, I realized that even though I had never filled out the paperwork, I knew most of the students and professors. I had more knowledge than I had ever anticipated of different subject areas within the field, including early German film, the GDR punk movement, and immigration patterns within Germany and Austria. I had become a German major without ever realizing it, and I loved it. I loved working with the professors and writing. So I filled out the paperwork and, although I don't know where the future will take me, I feel better prepared for it due to my involvement in the department. I'm currently waiting to hear back from USTA Austria, which has selected me as an alternate for a teaching assistantship for the 2020-2021 school year. I am incredibly thankful for the wonderful professors I’ve worked with and the amazing friends I made along the way.

The Italian Department’s smaller size was a fantastic fit for me, as it allowed for me to form meaningful individual relationships with other Italian Studies students, along with all of the Italian professors. My professors’ expertise and their supportiveness empowered me to learn so much more about Italian language and culture than I could have anticipated upon arriving at William & Mary. Under their guidance I was so grateful to have the opportunity to work as an Italian tutor, spread my love of Italian through being a teaching assistant, and create multiple independent studies. I feel so grateful that I had professors who were so invested in both my intellectual growth and me as a person, and who spent so much time and effort helping me with one-on-one meetings to practice speaking Italian and figure out my future career path. In particular, looking back on my four years in the department, my fondest memories include experiencing Professor Mattavelli’s infectious joy for Italian during my first semester of college, the pride of the first time I was able to read a novel in Italian with the help of Professor Seger, and my weekly individual meetings with Professor Ferrarese during my last independent study. After graduation I am moving to Boston to do psycho-oncology research on how to better help patients and their families from a psychological point of view. I plan on continuing to incorporate Italian into my everyday life as much as possible, and look forward to meeting new friends there with whom I can speak Italian! Grazie mille per tutto!

Eleanor (Nora) Pollard will be graduating with a 4-year degree in both French and Francophone Studies and Philosophy. As a sophomore, she became a resident of la Maison Française and served as a Peer Mentor for French 210 and French 212. She spent her junior year studying abroad for two semesters in Montpellier, France, at the Université Paul Valéry Montpellier III. There, she studied French literature, philosophy, translation, cinema, theatre, southern French history and culture, creative writing, and Spanish language. She additionally stayed with a host family, joined her university’s chorus, and made several life-long friends. Upon her return to W&M as a senior, she again took part in the French House, and this time served as a French Tutor for W&M’s French Department while taking the MDLL 401 TFL class for language tutors. She also developed an interest in Hispanic Studies upon her return, demonstrated by the three HISP classes she has taken this year: 203, 208 and 281. For the coming year, Ms. Pollard is deciding between joining a program in Barcelona that would have her teaching English and French and accepting a position teaching English with the TAPIF program in France.

Growing up, I always loved languages. I took Spanish from kindergarten through 12th grade, and tacked on Mandarin in 9th grade. By the time I got to William & Mary, I knew I wanted to continue my Chinese studies. I took off running in CHIN 201 with Su Laoshi and never looked back. As I went on, not only did I get to hone my language skills, but I also learned so much about the culture. This, paired with my International Relations major provided me with a wealth of global knowledge. After returning from my semester abroad in Geneva, Switzerland, I had completed my IR major and was able to upgrade my Chinese minor to a major. With that, my last 3 semesters have been filled with classes primarily in the MLL department and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. One of my favorite parts of majoring in Chinese at William & Mary has been becoming friends with the amazing people in the department. Many fun memories have been made in the classes we’ve shared together in Washington Hall over the past 4 years, my senior seminar with Professor Hill and “Sinophone and Global China” with Professor Lu are two that stand out. I am very grateful for both the knowledge and people that have become part of my life thanks to the MLL department. After graduation, I will be working for a consulting firm in DC and hope to return to my Chinese studies in graduate school.

I was hesitant to declare my Chinese major because I am a heritage speaker, but I’m glad I finally bit the bullet this previous fall semester. I feel that being a student of this program has not only enhanced my appreciation of the diversity of cultures on our planet, but has also allowed me to understand the culture and customs of my parents and ancestors further down the line. Not to mention, I can now communicate with my family in China without having to rely on Google Translate. I can also honestly say that my Chinese language classes were the highlight of my day most days of the week-there’s a certain camaraderie that you can only develop when you’re forced to speak Mandarin with a dozen other people four days a week. As for the future, I hope to continue my study of Chinese independently and hopefully earn an HSK 6 certification along the way. Even if I can’t directly apply my Chinese knowledge and skills to my career, I will definitely still use it in my personal life (because my entire lineage is Chinese) and perhaps I will get involved with the local Chinese school again. I will most likely be taking up a job as a programmer in the short term, but I intend to pursue a law degree in the not too distant future.

My time as a Chinese Studies major at William & Mary has been a whirlwind, to say the least. Entering my freshman year, I had sorta pigeon-holed myself as a finance type guy. Although I had taken some Mandarin in high school, I was concerned that my abilities wouldn't stack up with those of a college-level learner. But, after some encouragement from advisors, advice from friends, and a bad run in with Accounting 101, I threw myself headfirst into William & Mary's Chinese Department and haven't looked back. I've sang Chinese love songs with Taiwanese Ph.D students in the desert expanses of the Gobi Desert. I've taught samba to inquisitive 老人 in the parks of Shanghai. I've enjoyed snacks of duck clavicle in Beijing movie theatres - All because the Chinese department encouraged me to take the leap and study abroad in China. The faculty recognizes that although William & Mary's modern language teaching methods are legitimized by its track record of alumni, there's nothing better than learning through immersion.

Once the Covid-19 pandemic subsides and travel resumes between the USA and China, I’ll be serving as a Market Research Intern for Larkin Trade International, a customs-trade compliance firm in Beijing while continuing my study of Mandarin at a to-be-determined university. I'm truly excited to be at this huge crossroads in my life, but know I wouldn't have made it here without Professor Hill, Professor Su Qian, and the rest of the William & Mary Chinese Department staff. I'm eternally grateful for the opportunities they've afforded me, and will never forget my time as a Chinese Studies major at W&M.

Elizabeth hails from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is double majoring in English and French & Francophone Studies. She has always loved French—her mom was a French major at W&M, and her dad’s whole family is French Canadian. She works as a TA and tutor for the French department, and has loved every minute of getting to work closely with French students and the wonderful faculty. She was fortunate enough to travel with Magali Compan to Guadeloupe during spring break of 2019 to research slavery, colonialism,and memory on the island, and that will always remain one of her most cherished memories during her time at William & Mary. The French department at W&M has always felt like family, and she will miss all of the professors and friends she met along the way.

At William & Mary, I learned that being my best self involves educating myself on social issues, actively serving and caring for others and myself, reflecting on my actions, and incorporating community needs into my life. Studying Hispanic Studies allowed me to learn about social issues, participate in service learning, reflect in conversation with others, and meet new communities through traveling abroad to Spain or traveling a few miles down the road. 

I developed my critical eye for injustice, my clarity in writing and in speaking, and of course, my Spanish language skills. My professors challenged me to write essays in support of opinions that I strongly opposed, forcing me to realize being my best self requires that I sit in discomfort and anger from time to time and appreciate differences even when it is difficult. Right now, in quarantine, knowing how to sit in discomfort and focus on connections with others is more important than ever before, making me appreciate these skills. 

Professor Cate-Arries reminded me recently how much I can also appreciate taking advantage of every opportunity I had through W&M. I am thankful to have studied abroad in Cadiz and in Sevilla, to have interned at the Spanish Embassy, and to have served as a TA, but I am most thankful for the conversations and relationships that developed from my experiences with Professor Carmen Sanchis-Sinisterra and my Sevilla host mom. I will remember the people most of all, and the support they offered. Learning will never end as long as I have human connection, and Spanish allows me to build even more connections. I plan to continue making connections as an educator, earning my Master’s degree in ESL at W&M, learning from my students as much as I hope they will learn from me.

I will be graduating as a double major in English and Japanese studies. I am extremely proud to be part of the first graduating class that will be able to get the new Japanese major. It’s certainly been exciting to see the process of creating a new major and be a part of something that many of us have been hoping would happen. One of the best experiences from college was my study abroad in Japan at Ritsumeikan. It helped me to further my Japanese education through intensive learning and real-life experience, and it was also a lot of fun. Studying abroad helps to give you a new perspective on life by putting you into situations with people who might think differently from you, not just those from the country you’re studying in but also others in your program who may be from a variety of countries. Additionally, studying abroad can give you a taste of independence as you’re in a different country by yourself for possibly the first time.Though, I don’t yet have any definitive plans for after graduation, I hope to one day work in the publishing and entertainment industry. While I didn’t apply this year, I might consider applying for JET program next year to spent some time in Japan before I start a full-time career somewhere in America. I also have a lot of ideas for creative works that I would love to pursue in addition to an everyday job. For now, I may not know where I’m going, but I know that my education at William & Mary will help me greatly in achieving my goals and the connections I've made during my time here are invaluable.

The amazing experiences I had with the Japanese Department have truly defined my time at William & Mary. Starting from Japanese 101, I have found the students and faculty to bring a warm environment and a caring community. It was through this department that I discovered two life-changing programs; the William & Mary and the Keio University Cross-Cultural Collaboration and Keio University’s one year study abroad program. From these programs I have made life-long friends and cherished memories. I didn’t come to William & Mary intending to be a Japanese Major, but I don’t think I could have chosen a more rewarding path. I will be moving forward as a JET Assistant Language Teacher, hoping to foster the same wonderful intercultural environment that I have enjoyed these four years. I am very thankful to all the faculty and peers who have helped me make it this far and continue to motivate me.