10 Lectures for a Fresh Undergraduate @HSS Lecture 7 : My Experience as a Translator/Interpreter

In the beginning, Prof. Sui firstly shared a number of pictures of her interpreting experiences, which aroused great passion and curiosity about their future career among the students. As an interpreter with over 30 years’ experiences, Prof. Sui used to interpret for numerous great events and celebrities, which enable her to visit many amazing places and broaden her visions. Moreover, she also shared many pictures of her outstanding students – they are all great talents working in various areas ranging from interpreting to finance.

After the picture sharing, Prof. Sui concluded that all the achievements of these people come from their continuous replenishment and substantial hard work. “If we can equip ourselves with knowledge and competence, then we are always ready.” she said. Moreover, for being an interpreter, she also pointed out that interest must be the basic element. At the same time, Prof. Sui also encouraged students to explore in other areas based on language skills. As she suggested, interpreting could be a stepping stone to a profession.

Ms.Pang Hui is a skilled translator with rich working experiences, especially for her career experience in Huawei Company. Ms. Pang firstly give some advices on university life based on her own, she stressed that students should mainly focus on four things: study, activity, friends and exam. And when setting goals during the process, one should be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely.

Ms. Pang shared much about her working experience in Huawei, although she didn’t enjoy it at the beginning. “By learning to be adaptive and patient, I've learnt more than translation skills.” she said. Through consistent self-improvement, Ms. Pang finally had her own translation team in the company, and successfully led the team to work in India with outstanding performances, which was absolutely out of her own expectation. And exactly through these experiences, she finally realized her potential and passion in teaching and fully equipped with the matched ability. At the end of her sharing, she impressed the attendees with her favorite words—work hard in prosperity; study hard in adversity.

In the Q&A session, some students mentioned their concerns of their lack in abilities and experiences for future career, and asked if they should accumulate some practical interpreting experiences during the school time. Both Prof. Sui and Ms. Pang suggested accumulation of knowledge and language skills is the most important task for student currently. Before one is ready and competent enough, it’s risky for the students to interpret for a conference, for it may have a long-term negative influence on the students’ reputation in the career if they couldn’t do it well. They also explained, language learning is a long journey, patience and perseverance would be the key qualities during the process.