2000's
2009
Michael Dalton. I went on an internship to Italy following graduation to teach English to Italian High School students as a part of the Scuole di Lombardia program (SITE program). I worked in Italian with faculty in school and created my own lessons, teaching them to the Italian students in English. I used Italian every day and all-day in the small town I lived in (Crema, provincia di Cremona) and stayed with a host family. My Italian experience at Dickinson was phenomenal and I'm continuing to use my Italian now, taking classes twice a week with a tutor. I am currently a legal assistant at my father's law firm in Delaware. However, I'm also currently working to get into the importation business - facilitating small artisan Italian producers to sell their products in the US. Without Italian and my experience at Dickinson and following Dickinson with my internship (which was through Dickinson's Italian department), I would never have had any of the opportunities available to myself.
Joey Kirk. My Italian Studies major at Dickinson has been extremely helpful in my career by teaching me how to better understand diverse cultures and communicate beyond language. Following graduation, I was as an admissions counselor at a small, private, Catholic college outside of Philadelphia before completing a Masters of Arts in International Education in December 2012. Currently, I work for the British Council out of the British Embassy in Washington, DC where I promote international experiences to American students. I continue to use the Italian language visiting Italy, staying in touch with Italian friends and participating in events and meetings at the Italian Embassy.
Samuel Meller. Italian is an extremely useful language because of its versatility. Currently, I am in my second year of law school (University of Georgia School of Law) and I will be next year's senior articles editor for a Journal of International & Comparative Law. As a law student, having Italian is especially helpful to understand the literal translation of some legal Latin phrases. As a member of the editorial board of an academic journal on international law, I have used my background in Italian to help translate legal texts for my colleagues on the editorial board and to get a better understanding of European legal issues, which occurs often in discussions of general international law.
2008
Christina Brumbach. I minored in Italian. Since graduation in May 2008, I have been living in Italy. I first worked as an English teaching assistant on a Fulbright grant at two public high schools in Rome and have since lived in Bologna teaching English in different venues to children and adults. Italian has been vital to my daily life and will hopefully help me learn Spanish when I move to the US to teach. I am currently teaching children English in Bologna, but will soon transfer to Boston where I will go to graduate school for elementary education and ESL.
Deborah Hicks. Not merely my major in Italian Studies, but moreover, the guidance from the professors in the Italian department at Dickinson have shaped my career since my graduation. Were it not for their enthusiasm and encouragement, I would not have fallen in love with Italian culture because I never would have understood it on such a profound level. They opened the doors for my exploration of a different world, and also helped my find a career in teaching. I am currently teaching English as a second language outside of Milan, and hope to continue teaching in some context in the future.
Lucy Vandervort. I have always thought of Italian as the most beautiful language, and at Dickinson I was able to fully indulge my love of it. The crowning moment of my Italian-language experience at Dickinson was the year I spent studying abroad in Bologna—I fell completely in love with the people, food, art, way of life, etc. It was the best experience of my life, and I will never forget it. I am also able to say that my Italian language skills have benefited me post-college, as I have been providing Italian-English translations for a historian who is writing a book about the Italian war in Libya in the early 1900s. I would encourage anyone with a love of or interest in the Italian language to explore it at Dickinson. For me it was an experience I will always cherish—and I am fluent in Italian!
2003
Tiffany Bistocchi. After graduating from Dickinson I lived in Perugia for one year and studied at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. I then went on to study at the Università degli Studi di Firenze with Middlebury College. I earned my MA in Italian Studies from Middlebury College in 2006. I taught elementary school Italian and I currently teach high school Italian. I have also been teaching adult Italian classes for the past five years at night.
2002
Ellen Laird. After graduating from Dickinson, I had a strong desire to return to Italy and use my knowledge of the language and culture in a working environment. I returned to Bologna and began teaching English as a second language at a local, private language school. Even though I was teaching the English language, my knowledge of Italian was very useful because it helped me have a better understanding of how my students were progressing in their efforts to learn the English language. I understood why they made certain mistakes or why they confused certain words or grammar rules based on their own native language. My knowledge of Italian helped me to better address my students’ needs as a teacher. My knowledge of the Italian language and culture was also very useful and important in my everyday life in Bologna. It helped to have a good understanding of how things “worked” in Italy, both bureaucratically and socially, when it came to finding an apartment to rent, searching for work, meeting new friends and networking with people. My knowledge of the Italian language and culture continued to grow during my time Bologna after graduation, and this knowledge has been fundamental in my position as the Bologna Program Associate for Dickinson’s study abroad program in Bologna, Italy. I have been working for the Bologna Program for four years, and I thoroughly enjoy being a part of Dickinson College’s overseas network. My education in the Italian language at Dickinson College, and my experiences abroad in Italy, both as a student and after graduation, were key elements to helping be where I am today.
Lisa Sabetta. I use my Italian every day on both a professional and personal level. After majoring in Italian Studies at Dickinson I decided to use my Italian skills as a way to enter the work force in a way that would set me apart from others applicants. Following graduation, after two years as a paralegal at an UK law firm in Milan where I translated legal documents, I decided to come back to the States in order to pursue my passion for the fashion and luxury sector. Even at that time during those months when I was unemployed and between jobs I was able to find a temp position as a receptionist at an Italian bank in NY - while continuing to look for jobs that would allow me to utilize my Italian and follow my dream. I currently work in marketing for an Italian men's fashion company - where I use my Italian every day, whether it be in communication with my Italian boss in the office or over the phone or in emails to headquarters in Milan. Continuing to use my Italian has also allowed me the opportunity to keep in touch with many friends made over the years and popular Italian culture (music, movies, sports, gossip, fashion and even youth slang which I manage to sprinkle into my spoken Italian!). The journey that I have taken with Italian was set in motion first semester freshman year at Dickinson in my first Italian class and has continued to this very day - and for that i am extremely grateful.
2000
Neal McTighe. Studying Italian at Dickinson College has turned out to be one of the single-most important and influential decisions of my life, and it certainly was the belief in my abilities by the Italian faculty at Dickinson that led me to believe I could succeed beyond the limestone walls. After I graduated from Dickinson, I earned an MA in Italian from Middlebury College and then a PhD in Italian from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Along with teaching Italian at a small college in Raleigh, I am the founder and managing partner of one of the leading premium tomato sauce companies in the southeast, Nello's Sauce.
Brendan Jay Williams. Although Italian is a beautiful language, my love of the language has always been something I experience in a very practical way - I was never much interested in literature or poetry; for me, Italian was a key that could unlock the door to Italian culture and to Italy itself. So although I appreciate Dante, what really excited me was being able to use Italian in daily life, to see a movie, to travel, to converse with Italians in Italian in Italy. My year studying with Dickinson in Bologna was one of the most formative and memorable of my life. I studied Italian for love of the language; I never expected that it would help me in my career. However, I landed my first real job out of Dickinson (as a mutual fund analyst for Bloomberg) precisely because of my fluency in Italian. Although I knew little about finance at the time, their reasoning (I always assumed) was that it would be easier to teach finance to a fluent Italian speaker than to teach Italian to a finance major, and so I got the job. I was a dual Italian Studies / International Studies major, and after a couple of years I decided to go back to school to get a Master’s in International Relations. As fate would have it, I ended up back in Bologna for a second year, this time studying on the Johns Hopkins program, where I met a beautiful young Italian student whom I would end up marrying (seven years ago today). We have three young (bilingual) children, and live near Oxford, England. Last year, I passed the psychologically significant milestone of becoming an Italian citizen, a step I can trace directly back to my Italian 101 class at Dickinson. Needless to say, the Italian language and culture are still very much a part of my life every day.