Alumni Career Updates

Learn how RLL graduates are using their degrees in different fields:
 

Health

I am an orthopedic surgery resident in Washington, DC. I am currently on a pediatric orthopedic rotation at Children’s National Medical Center. There is a high concentration of Spanish-Speaking citizens, so I use Spanish on an almost daily basis at this hospital. -Spanish Minor '06

Currently living in Carson City, Nevada on my third rotation for Physical Therapy School at Northwestern University. I am working in an outpatient orthopedic clinic under the supervision of an instructor from Columbia whose first language is Spanish. I speak Spanish daily with a Spanish speaking population and have evaluated and treated patients entirely in Spanish thanks to my education and Michigan! -Spanish '13

I currently serve in the Mendocino Community Health Clinic (MCHC) as a HealthCorps Educator in Ukiah, California. This fall, I will be providing nutrition and dental education to bilingual immersion elementary schools to at-risk children (overweight, obese, or at risk of becoming overweight/obese). I will also be working with MCHC’s pediatric team, doing diabetes counseling with children and their families. -Spanish '14

OB/Gyn generalist practicing in Salt Lake City, UT. I care for a large Spanish-speaking population and utilize my language skills daily. I’m very grateful for my advanced education through the U of M Romance Languages Department. -Spanish '01

Law

I am a lawyer and have recently opened a Paris law office and represent Americans with employment law/discrimination issues in France. I get to use the French I learned in Ann Arbor and in Aix en Provence (during my junior year abroad) almost every day. -French '91

I use my Spanish language skills everyday as a lawyer who represents children from Central America. -Spanish '06

Education

Since graduating from U of M in 2011, I’ve taught 5th grade in a bilingual school in rural Honduras and worked at two different international NGOs in Washington, D.C. Currently, I’m on a Fulbright Scholarship in Mérida, Mexico, working at the Secretary of Education in Yucatán as an English Teaching Assistant. The Spanish language skills I gained at U of M and studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain have been integral to shaping the person and professional I am today and will continue to grow into. -Spanish '11

After working as a bilingual special education teacher in the Bronx through the NYC Teaching Fellows program, I recently moved back to Detroit to serve as the academic coordinator at the Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program (www.downtownyouthboxing.org). In both of these roles, I have used Spanish to communicate and build relationships with students, parents, and coaches. -Spanish '12

I completed the Stanford Teacher Education Program then started teaching French at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco. I look forward to the chance to share language and culture with my students every day, and constantly draw on the lessons I learned in Michigan. Go Blue! -French '14

After graduation, I joined Teach For America and was a corps member in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas [and] taught fourth grade.  For the past two years, I taught eighth grade algebra in the same charter school district as I worked during the corps. My Spanish was incredibly useful for me, since the majority of parents spoke Spanish as their first language and I communicated regularly with [them]. As of August 2013, I’ve been a student at Harvard Graduate School of Education. I’m getting my Ed.M in International Education Policy, and I’m very interested in how international and global education can be used as a way to improve education for low-income, particularly immigrant, students in developed countries. I’m interested in exploring programs that promote bilingualism and biculturalism. -Spanish '09

After teaching K-12 Spanish in Chicago and Tucson for five years, and starting a Spanish tutoring business, I went on to pursue my Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Arizona. My dissertation is a critical investigation of Arizona’s ESL policy, and how it conflicts with the state’s significant multilingual, multicultural, and immigrant student population. -Spanish '07

Business

After finishing a UofM Fulbright grant in Brazil in 2014, I’ve now started my own online business as a pronunciation/accent coach. I help language learners and teachers develop natural sounding pronunciation in various languages so they can build confidence, avoid frustration, and make positive first impressions. I create products that make foreign language communication more effective for people who need it the most, and my passion for learning languages myself has been enhanced throughout this journey! -Spanish '07

I am now working for Google Inc. in Santiago, Chile in their marketing/sales department, expanding Google’s presence in Latin America. -Spanish Minor '09

Social Services

I am currently an in-home social worker for the Child and Family Services Agency at the District of Columbia government. I work primarily in the Columbia Heights region of the city with a large amount of Spanish-only speaking clients. -Spanish '10

Currently using my Spanish skills as a bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist working in Special Education with Spanish speaking preschoolers. -Spanish '03

I now live in Miami, FL and have been working with unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children newly arrived to the US, mainly from the Central American Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. These are children who are fleeing abuse, violence, and poverty in their home countries to reunify with family members here in the US. We work to ensure the children are placed in a safe and appropriate home after their release from the immigration shelters, and provide advocacy and support to help link them to legal, medical, mental health, and educational resources post-release. -Spanish '09

Right now I am living in rural Saint Lucia and volunteering at the Saint Lucia Crisis Centre in the capital. I work for an afterschool program where I teach students basic French, as well as conflict resolution skills and ways to boost self worth and formulate future goals. I am also working on learning some of the local french Creole language called Patois. -French Minor '15

Living in Kalamazoo working as a speechlanguage pathologist in the geriatric population. Used my RLL degree to provide services at our local bilingual Sp-Eng elementary school! -Spanish '09

Translation

I am currently working as a full-time Spanish/French>English freelance translator specializing in clinical research. -French and Spanish '08

After working at From A to Sí Transla-tions in Southfield, MI for the past 7 ½ years (first as a Spanish Translator and Project Manager and then as the Director of Translations), I recently started working at Denison Consulting here in Ann Arbor. As the Localization Manager, my role is to expand Denison’s international presence and to ensure, maintain, and expand the quality and availability of Denison Consulting’s translations in over 40 languages for all systems, products, and materials. -Spanish '05