St. Gregory’s Primary School Careers Day
I’m Sarah Cutts and I’ve worked at Lifeline Language Services for 9 years as Translator & Project Manager. I speak Spanish and French and my role involves handling translation projects, dealing with client enquiries and producing certified translations of documents such as birth/ death/ marriage certificates and other commercial and legal documents.
As part of the “Inspiring the Future” initiative, I was recently asked to participate in a Career’s Day at St. Gregory’s Primary School in Preston. The aim was to help the children become more aware of the opportunities available to them in the world of work, with some 25 professionals from various disciplines participating. As there is an increasing need for more linguists in our profession, I was only too happy to help.
The format of the day was “speed interviewing” sessions with children from different year groups. Seated at a table with 2 or 3 children at a time I had one minute to introduce myself and my job, then three minutes of answering questions and talking about why I decided on a career in languages, and more specifically, translation. The children came up with some interesting questions, such as “What qualifications do you need for this job?”, “What is the best thing about being a translator?” and “How long did it take for you to train for this job?” To be able to answer these questions I had to think back to my own time at school, then university, and share some of my experiences in travel and work. I also explained the different types of work we do at Lifeline, and the various careers available in languages.
I certainly had the impression that the children were interested and impressed with what I had to say, and hope I’ve helped to give an insight into this profession and inspire a future generation of linguists!