By Angela Lu
“What should I do after I graduate?” One constantly hears this question being asked by students in the department. Since I’m a junior now I’ve started to spend more time thinking about this question as well. However, it wasn’t too long before I realized that it’s real no use wandering about in my own imagination, so I decided to talk to a senior classmate who graduated four years ago. He’s now in graduate school. Still in close contact with most of his classmates he had a lot of information to offer, and I hope this might be of use to you as well. The most obvious career choice for many of our graduates is to become a teacher, especially an English teacher. Since Taiwan is trying to become more internationalized, English education has become increasingly important. As a result, more and more English teachers are needed for all sorts of schools, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, as well as for private institutes and cram schools. But first you need to be certified by taking a group of education courses, or by passing the elementary school English teacher qualification exam and then go through more training offered by the Ministry of Education. Private English institutes or cram school also provide their own training programs; all you need is good language skills and an interest in teaching English. Editing and translating are also popular choices for our graduates. Editors are needed for many different types of publications, including books, magazines, newspapers, and even on-line periodicals. English magazines and textbooks are the most popular areas for our students. Translating is also a great career. Besides written works, transcriber and translators of foreign TV programs, movies and, songs are all very much in demand. And of course there’s oral interpretation, if you are willing to undergo more specialized training. Although we are not specifically trained in business skills, many of our graduates are recruited by corporations and trading companies every year. You probably never imagined what a wide variety of businesses have hired our graduates, everything from a glass industrial company to high-tech firms. Sometimes our students enter as executive assistants, which basically means they serve as English secretaries, but at the same time they are picking up business skills and valuable work experience. This is exactly what happened to one of our students; after working in a high-tech firm for 3 years, her company wants to send her abroad for an MBA degree. A very large number of our graduates go to graduate school, but not always immediately. Some choose to work for a while before going back to school. And with good training in language skills and the humanities, our students have unlimited options for graduate programs. Not only literature, linguistics, and drama, but also things like education, communication, and art management, and even more “remote” fields like business management, psychology, design, law, and computer science. One student from a few years ago was very interested in dance. She decided to go abroad to study it, and now she is teaching in National Institute of the Arts(國立藝術學院). A number of our students went on to journalism school, and they are now editors and translators of foreign news at several prestigious TV stations. So let’s return to our first question: “What should I do after I graduate?” Anything you want! All options are open and free for us to choose. The important thing is to choose what you like. One unchanging piece of advice from both teachers and graduates is to give yourself more opportunities: participate in any activity that interests you, take different courses, join clubs, take parts in contests – anything! Explore yourself; find out what you are interested in and know where your potential lies. Then go for your dream and have a life worth living. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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