My name is Madeline Nolen, and I am humbled to be one of this year’s recipients of theChiara Maria Levin Award. I just completed my degree in Romance Languages, where Ispecialized in French and Spanish and began studying Catalan, Portuguese, and Italian.

Learning languages has become the way I explore the world. This exploration sometimestakes me far away— like when a class on the French education system led to an internship at abilingual school in Martinique. Other times, it keeps me very near— like how every word Ilearned in Spanish class helped me understand my coworkers better at my waitressing job. Bothnear and far, the classes I took on linguistics and literature built tangible skills that I could useanywhere and everywhere. Before college, I could hold a semi-competent conversation in French(if someone forced me to). Now, I have the confidence to work with, chat with, and truly get toknow people in five languages, and I will take any opportunity to do so. That’s a big change injust four years!

I owe so much to this department for fostering this passion for exploration, and I amimmensely grateful to this scholarship for giving me the funds to further my linguistic studies.I’m not yet sure where my path will lead next; I’m looking into graduate school, as well as jobsin education, translation, and the arts. Regardless of where I’m heading, I cannot wait for all thatI have learned to help me along my journey!