During the Spring semester, 11 students enrolled in SPN3943: Internship in Spanish. The purpose of this course is to place students in professional settings where they can apply the skills developed in our programs. Our mission is to help them transfer their language and cultural skills to the job market before graduating. This internship program is part of Beyond120, a program of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
We want to share with you some of what some of the interns said, in their own words:
Marian Hernández, Genesis Heart and Ixchel Collazo: Interns at The New Student & Family Program
Genesis Heart: “I am a fourth-year biology major with a Spanish minor. In this internship, I worked with Marian and Ixchel to translate over 50 pages of the Family Edition of the Preview Workbook. Every week we meet with our supervisor, Melanie Marshall, to revise their translations and divide up the pages to be translated by the next meeting. I first start my translation process by copy-pasting the text into a different document. I translate one paragraph at a time and use resources like Linguee and WordReference to fill in the gaps in my Spanish knowledge. Then, when the team meets, we read our translations out loud to each other while sharing our screen to make sure the text retains its meaning and/or suggest alternate translations. This internship has been a pleasure and has allowed me to keep learning and practicing Spanish in an applied setting.”
María Echeverry: Intern at Children Beyond Our Borders
María Echeverry: “My internship is with Triunfadores Parents Academy, which is a program of the non-profit organization called Children Beyond Our Borders. We are producing a series of workshops in Spanish to teach parents about the American education system with the help of community experts. We are creating six virtual talks and one in-person student panel. My job has been to assist with all the steps involved in giving these workshops. For instance, I have aided with the planning, which consisted of choosing topics and dates, creating flyers, contacting speakers, and recruiting parents. During the talks, I have also helped to moderate the conversation between the speakers and the parents. Finally, after the workshops, I have created informational booklets and emails to send to the parents summarizing the topics covered.”
Kourtnee Saunders: Intern at Children Beyond Our Borders
Kourtnee Saunders: “For my internship, I had the honor of working with Children Beyond Our Borders Gainesville in the Empowerment through English Initiative (EEI). My responsibilities consist of doing research and creating presentations to help Spanish-speaking adults to learn English, while also giving them a safe space to practice what they’ve learned. We have different level of presentations (basic level and intermediate) and an intermediate level conversation course. I recently experimented with a conversation class, and it went really well! My favorite part of my internship is being able to connect with people in the Gainesville community and being to help other people. Despite doing everything through Zoom, this has definitely been a rewarding experience and I feel more connected to the community now more than ever. I have learned so much by getting to blend my love of education and languages, as well as being able to teach others.”
Macs Burke: SPS Administrator of Website and Social Network under Luis Álvarez-Castro
Macs Burke: “So far, I have designed and posted information from local groups and from UF on the above sites. I have designed each item myself to be the most engaging it possibly could be. I mostly work from home, reporting weekly to Dr. Álvarez-Castro. I have had multiple meetings with CLAS IT in learning advanced WordPress techniques which I have been able to incorporate in my dealing with the SPS website, such as incorporating widgets and cascading menus. Additionally, I have completed leadership assignments each week in English and Spanish to gauge my strengths and weaknesses as I move into the final month of this internship.”
Dianelda Pulido: Intern at Rhina Bonilla Transcripts
Dianelda Pulido: “I worked with Rhina Bonilla Transcriptions, a transcription and translation company focusing on providing Spanish-English translations and transcriptions for various universities across the United States. In this role, I have transcribed and translated various studies pertaining to AIDs research and racial discrimination, enhancing my Spanish abilities. I have also received mentorship and guidance from UF alum Rhina Bonilla during my internship. Additionally, I interned for The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the leading organization for global aviation standards and regulations as a Training Coordinator. In this role, I have conducted, coordinated, several courses pertaining to aviation standards. One of my favorite aspects of the job has been interacting with a global community.”
Sophie Goodwin: Intern at the Florida Museum of Natural History
Sophie Goodwin: “I intern at the Florida Museum of Natural History located across from Southwest gym and near the Phillips Center. At this internship, our main job is to translate documents from English to Spanish so the museum can eventually be a completely bilingual space. … Besides translation, we are trying to add outreach to the Hispanic community in Gainesville through the museum’s resources. Unfortunately, due to COVID, this has not really been able to take off like we would all hope it to. However, in the future I am confident that the museum will have many partnerships and outreach with the Hispanic Gainesville community.”