English Major Jobs and Graduate School Acceptances 2021

Paul Muldoon, Stellfox, Creative Writing, residency, English, poetry

English class.

Lauren Feldman

Major: English
Hometown: Huntington, New York
Graduate School: University of East Anglia
Field of study: media and international development

How has Dickinson prepared you for life after graduation?

My professors always pushed me to work as hard as they knew I could, and encouraged me to explore my passions.

What are you most anticipating about your career or post-graduate pursuits?

The opportunity to study abroad and gain a more global perspective and experience.

Gracyn Bird

Majors: art & art history, English
Hometown: Gaithersburg, Maryland
Graduate School: Georgetown University
Field of study: English

How has Dickinson prepared you for life after graduation?

The academic rigor and attention to interdisciplinary studies helped prepare me for graduate school and hopefully a career in academia.

What are some of the defining moments of your Dickinson experience?

My senior capstone projects—my English thesis and studio art exhibition.

Kara Smith

Majors: English, Spanish, environmental studies
Hometown: Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
Employer: Ngenius Tutoring and Test Prep
Job title: Spanish tutor

Job Responsibilities

My primary job right now is teaching and tutoring Spanish grammar, culture, speaking, listening and writing for students K-12. I design lesson plans and homework assignments for some of my students for whom I am their primary or only Spanish teacher. For other students, I am a resource for homework help and aiding in taking their Spanish learning further than they are able to in the classroom. Aside from working directly with my students, I also am responsible for regularly communicating with them and their parents via email and sometimes phone to remind them of appointments, provide follow up information and discuss the students' progress. I occasionally do administrative work for Ngenius Tutoring and Test Prep as well, which involves finding or creating relevant material they can share on their social media pages to engage with parents and students.

What are you most anticipating about your career or post-graduate pursuits?

I hope to be able to go back to school soon. I want to pursue a career in higher education, ideally as a Spanish professor at a school similar to Dickinson. My experience with professors and classes at Dickinson, particularly within the Department of Spanish, was very positive, and I would love to be able to affect future college students in similar ways. Until I'm able to go back to school to earn my Ph.D. in Spanish literature, I hope to be able to continue tutoring and teaching Spanish as much as possible, as I am currently doing.

What are some of the defining moments of your Dickinson experience?

I loved my time at Dickinson. In particular, I credit my wonderful professors for fostering environments in which I grew as a person, student, researcher, scholar and future educator. While at Dickinson, I was able to be a research assistant for two of my Spanish professors, Professor of Spanish Elise Bartosik-Vélez and Associate Professor of Spanish Erin Díaz. Both of those research opportunities greatly increased my love of the other half of a professor's responsibilities: personal research projects. I was also told about and coached through a project, based on my Spanish senior thesis, that I submitted for NeMLA's annual Undergraduate Forum and later presented at their conference in Boston. Without the support and belief of my professors in the Department of Spanish, I never would have known about that opportunity and would never have been exposed to the wide range of research projects I encountered at the conference. Working in Dickinson's Multilingual Writing Center is another experience I will carry with me forever. I tutored Spanish writing at the center for multiple years and participated in the first Multilingual Writer's Badge Program offered. I loved tutoring at the Writing Center and learned so much about teaching and second language acquisition that I continue to draw. Working as a peer tutor for Spanish was also an incredibly rewarding experience, as was getting to know OSAs while living in the Romance Languages House my sophomore year. Despite the fact that the house is actively falling apart, I wouldn't trade that year and the friends I made during it for anything.

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Published April 30, 2021