Q: How did your Slavic studies prepare you for your future career? What was the most important thing you learned?
A: Although I moved away from languages to focus on archaeology and have never really used my Russian in a career setting, I think the essay writing and ways of discussing literature made it easy to transition to graduate studies and beyond. Also, it was very difficult and I never really mastered spoken Russian fluency, but with dedication and persistence I still made it work for me in daily life - I think that was a good lesson in perseverence.
Q: How did your Slavic studies contribute more generally to your life?
A: I met my future (now ex-) husband through the study abroad programme (via Dalhousie) in Leningrad. I travelled to Russia many times for personal business, and the language skills were vital for me. He and his family are still my extended family, and despite not speaking Russian on a daily basis for a long time I still read a lot and speak (with increasing difficulty) on a fairly regular basis. In 2021 I co-edited/translated an art/history/fiction volume in English translation from Russian on Platres, Cyprus, and realised that I could still get the fine distinctions in the written Russian all these years later. I have also used my Russian as a lingua franca - particularly in Croatia, Slovenia and - unexpectedly - in Laos and Cyprus.
Q: What did you do immediately upon graduation?
A: I went to Japan to teach English and then to Russia for personal reasons - and then to England to do a Masters in Environment Archaeology at Sheffield.
Q: What advice would you give to graduating students, or to students thinking about the Slavic program?
A: Slavic studies opened up a new world to me, one which has definitely made my life interesting and, although I'm doing other things entirely now, Russian keeps on coming back into my life, and I am still tempted to go back and do more studies in Russian (esp linguistics and literature). I think if you don't have a background in the languages (as I did not), you should be ready to dedicate yourself because it is demanding, but really worthwhile and enjoyable. And definitely take the linguistics options - really helps a lot.