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Student Polina Akzhigitova holding papers

Summer Placement Diaries

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Polina's Summer Placement at Mitra

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For me EMTTI is the most holistic program available at the moment. It lets you consider your interests and chances. You get an opportunity to try a bit of everything and pick an area of specialisation. You think it’s only about translating? Ha!

During our UMA curriculum we tried a wide variety of things. We subtitled, localized, extracted terms and created term bases for projects, tried real interpreting booths and interpreting simultaneously and consecutively, took a look at the glossary creation, mediated cultural differences, dissected codes of ethics and professional conduct of world’s translation associations.  We learned how the cutting edge technologies work on laptops, tablets and smartphones of different brands and generations, on android and ios. Even styluses and mics didn’t slip our attention. We got a taste of corpora and neural networks. Honestly, after our intensive course at UMA, I believe, few things can surprise my translating and interpreting self. 

After having submerged into the academic field, I craved for more practical experience and real work environment. I had worked as a freelance translator and interpreter before, but had never seen what a real translation agency looks like from within. Luckily, the consortium has connections with large players on translation market and among them – Mitra translations, one of the biggest translation agency in Bulgaria.

I couldn’t lose that opportunity and chose it as my placement provider. To tell the truth, I was not disappointed. Although the hardships of the new reality didn’t let me arrive in Bulgaria, we managed to organise the placement online through videoconference tools. My supervisor Dr. Irina Temnikova is doing her best to quench my curiosity and teach me about the practical side of translation. Even though I have finished only my first week, I already learned about the company hierarchy and staff, basics of project management, correspondence and data organization. Dr. Irina has scheduled for us a series of webinars and demonstrations, and we, in our turn can share with them our knowledge. For instance, I will be delivering a presentation on one of the most popular Cat-tools next week. 

Anyway, he who has eyes to seelet him see, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear! Indeed, thanks to the programme I see how many opportunities and areas of specialization surround me.  I see EM TTI as a bridge to further excellence in science or industry and am looking forward to my second year at NBU! 

Post Written by Polina Akzhigitova