Let me introduce myself. I am Ksenia Panteleyeva, a student of the 4th year, Faculty of Linguistics, and I’ve picked up some hands-on experience to share with fellow treaders on the path of translation.
This summer I tried a real translation bureau for a job of a translator’s assistant. It was really priceless, I realized that my translation classes really matter, and, what I am really proud of, sometimes I had an opportunity to check the work of the professionals and even correct their work sometimes - and, at the same time, to find something new I could learn.
For a month and a half, 5 days a week I attended work at the office to check, correct, reorganize, format and print out the ready-made translations from and into many languages, to work with the translators and to ask them on anything I would like to know in the professional field. I learnt what I should and what I should not do as a translator, tried myself in work with new programs, and found new functions in the familiar ones, so now I can work with Adobe Illustrator, ABBYY Transformer, different types of readers and text recognition programs, not to say that MS Office Word is an easy thing for me now and I can make a 600-pages document ready in a couple of hours. My work helped me to get rid of my personal complexes and get used to team work, so now my colleagues like me, I think, and are perfectly glad to see me in the office.
Due to my enthusiasm and deep involvement into the working process, the management also showed their please of me, and now they want me to continue working there after getting my degree, full-time. I really feel happy and proud, but the strongest feeling I see in me is gratitude. Gratitude to my teachers, gratitude for my mom for giving me an opportunity to study here, gratitude for the institute for the existing motivating atmosphere, and gratitude to the administration of the IGUMO for the way they organized my studies. Among all people there is one man, who deserves the most of this gratitude, and it is Alexey Borisovich Kiyaykin, my teacher of theory of translation, practice of translation, and, actually, the only reason I have learned his subject well enough.
The main thing, which is important for your future career is that you should not be afraid of trying something new, you should not be afraid of your mistakes, you should not be afraid of critique. That is all the things that make you better personally and professionally.
Of course, you will face the criticism, you will face in the very first checked-and-corrected version of your first translation, you will face it in your own mind, you will face it anywhere and you should be ready to accept it and react in a proper way: never lash back, ask for details, ask for the analysis. It is the way to correct mistakes, the way to improve.
The second point is that you should not be afraid to make a mistake. When I was on my 2nd grade I first tried to work as technical support assistant for booth/simultaneous interpreting at an event, and later did it regularly, because I succeeded. It was a new experience, and it was wonderful, I learned how to use all the supplies, talked to some superiors and for the first time in my life went out to the stage to explain to about a hundred businessmen how to use the equipment. I felt as if my breath was taken away, and I was afraid at first, staying behind the stage and going to step into the limelight. But I managed to do it, and it was a victory of me over myself.
The third point is that you should not fear to try. At the end of the 3rd grade my friend called me, and asked if I could make some challenging translation for his brother. I asked for the text to watch, and it turned out to be a couple of patents for chemistry postgraduate training program, be-all 30 000 signs of scientific text; I said that I had no guarantee of success, but I would try, and I managed to translate it. Actually, it was the first time I was paid for my translation seriously, and I felt as happy, as only dead can be, it was the greatest thing I had ever done.
All things mentioned above brought me to my summer work place and gave me even more opportunities, especially counting the fact that I am going to do my autumn practice there.
I just wanted to say: don’t be shy, don’t be afraid, always try something new, and your experience will bring you to new knowledge and new opportunities, and your course is only the backbone of all those, if you want to be experienced, you should try and persist. At the same time, your studies are also important, but the knowledge you don’t apply is just information noise.
Good luck, and hope you go well!
Ksenia Panteleyeva, group 4LDL2
21.10.2016Ïðîñìîòðîâ:
Marina
Volynkina