Sharon Jeon/ My Dream Job/ Tues. 11AM

My Dream Job

It is good to have a dream job, but if you do not work to achieve it, it is useless. Ever since I was young, I wanted to become a conference interpreter. Whenever I watched press conference or speeches on television, my eyes were fixated on the interpreters. I have always admired them and dreamed of becoming one of them when I grew up. I cannot express the excitement when I got accepted into English Interpretation and Translation and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. However, I soon realized that I still have a long way to go to achieve my dreams. As of now, I am not qualified to become an interpreter because I do not have a mother tongue, I lack in training, and I am not aware of the current issues in places outside of Korea.

 

Firstly, I do not have a mother tongue yet. My parents immigrated to the Philippines even before I was born, so I was naturally exposed to three languages growing up. I spoke Korean at home, English at school, and Tagalog (Filipino language) with my neighbors and friends. Before I entered elementary school, I went out to play with my neighbors after breakfast, so I was most comfortable with Tagalog. However, after I entered an international school in first grade where all classes were taught in English and the majority of the students were from English-speaking countries, English became comfortable. At home, I learned Korean from my parents, so I was able to have conversations in Korean, but I never became fluent in it until I came to Korea after high school graduation. The problem is, I speak three languages but I do not have a mother tongue. However, in order to be a conference interpreter, having a mother tongue is mandatory, thus I am not qualified to become one yet.

 

Another reason I am not set to become a conference interpreter yet is because I need more training and experience. Conference interpreters need a long memory span because they need to remember a lot of information at once and be able to translate all the key information into another language. This requires much practice and training, but I am still a sophomore, so I lack this ability. I also need to improve my note-taking skills. If the speech gets longer, I tend to get behind in taking notes. Therefore, I fail to miss some important points that must be included in my interpretation.

 

Finally, I am not aware of the events and incidents that are happening in the world right now. A conference interpreter must read newspapers and magazines all the time to know what the big issues are. However, I only know the current situation of Korea. I do not take time to find out about what is happening in the world outside. Therefore, I lack a major quality to become a conference interpreter.

 

It is not enough to have a dream job. You need to strive hard to achieve it. Currently, I am not qualified to become one for these reasons: I do not have a mother tongue, I lack in training, and I am not aware of the events that are happening in places outside of Korea today. I am a sophomore now, thus I still have much time to train myself. For the remaining years at HUFS, I am going to work hard to improve my interpreting skills to the fullest.