Marine Barjol developed her capstone project for the minor in translation studies out of an internship for political science degree. After arriving in Washington DC for the Michigan in Washington program in fall 2016, Marine was offered an internship opportunity working with a visiting fellow from France at the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The fellow, Fabrice Balanche, was working on a book about the Syrian civil war, and one of Marine's assignments was helping translate the French manuscript into English. The project was a challenging yet rewarding experience. Not only did Marine gain practical translation skills, she also acquired professional experience working with and author on a publishing project. The translation took seven months for Marine to complete, and the end result, Sectarianism in Syria’s Civil War by Fabrice Balanche, was published in 2018.