Students’ club of  linguistic and cultural studies “Travel Office”, led by lecturer of the Department of Germanic Philology Olena Nazarenko, always gives students the opportunity to communicate with interesting guests and get good practical advice on work, study and travel first hand.

This time, on March 29, we were joined by a graduate of the Department of German Philology Mariia Dorda - translator with 10 years of official entrepreneurship activities, foreign SEO copywriting experience, goods description transcreation, making out articles, agreements, management of professional crew support of e-commerce sites since 2011. Written translation experience of economic, IT, technical texts, participation in system SAP IS-H Med ERP localization and organization documentation since 2003.

Mariia shared her impressions of studying at the department, talked about employment opportunities and gave some valuable advice to future translators.

• How do you find studying at the department?
• Colourful, never boring, rich in events and activities, as well as opportunities for self-learning and self-development.

• What skills did you acquire at university while performing your professional duties?
• Well, we can talk about it for a long time. I am grateful to the department for instilling in me a love for technical translation and teaching me to do it at the highest level. It is especially cool that the university gives me the opportunity to try my hand at the practice, which I took on the basis of JSC "SMNVO-Engineering". Also my future employers expressed admiration for the quality of work performed, because SumDU teaches discipline, perseverance and professional approach to each, even the smallest text. I also gained a thorough knowledge of translation practice in pairs, which I still use. There we performed all possible types of translation - consecutive, simultaneous, written, trained a lot, developed our communication skills, memory and studied translation at the art level. I am very grateful to my alma mater for acquiring such practically important hard & soft skills.

• Do you think that studying at the university now is radically different from what it was before?
• Definitely. You start in the age of digitalization, when Google will answer your every question, any word you find in seconds in online dictionaries, any information will open for you in a few clicks. We had to sit in libraries for hours on the scientific works of professors to prepare the smallest report. Translation of texts could also take more than an hour, because we used paper dictionaries. Now, in my opinion, it is easier to learn, because you have all the opportunities. So use them to the greatest possible extent.

• What advice would you give to future generations of translators?
• Do not be afraid and believe in yourself. You may be limited in resources, but what is not limited is in desire. More perseverance and self-confidence. Don't be afraid to try. We all learn from mistakes. No one guarantees that everything will work out from the first time, but every mistake is a valuable experience that shapes you as a translator. So full steam ahead to new accomplishments!

On such a positive note we ended our meeting. Lecturers of the department Olena Medvid, Galyna Chulanova and Olha Zhulavska were sincerely glad to meet one of the best graduates, and students of 2-3 courses clearly understood that the future of graduates of the specialty "Philology" exists, and it is extremely promising and bright!

Lutskovska Alina, student of the group PR-81