 That was wonderful. That was, thank you for sharing your stories. I found that was very engaging and inspiring, even. And I'm sure that our students have a lot of questions about a lot of similar points. I heard the word passion being mentioned quite a few times. People talking about uncertainty, not knowing what you want to do, and then finding your way. Changing careers while in Fairfield and after Fairfield. And I'm sure that these touch on a lot of questions that the students currently have as they face the future. So I'm opening it up to you, and I hope to hear your voice. Hi, thank you so much for being here tonight. It was extraordinarily helpful to listen to your advice. I'm a senior, I'm a graduate of MA, so it's so helpful to hear everything, all your wisdom. And I was just wondering, as language majors and minors, how would you specifically leverage your language, like the job process, like was that? It definitely came up. It sounds like it was a very common thing throughout whether it was in your current position or moving it into the application. Do you think something like writing your cover letter in that language that you speak, that could be advantageous? How would you specifically distinguish yourself with the language skill? I didn't really leverage it. I was the only one on my team that spoke Spanish. So it was kind of just like, it's you or no one. But we have hired for positions that need the language skills. And it's definitely, we have an internal recruiter and she doesn't speak Spanish or Portuguese or the language that we need. So it's definitely paramount to understand that the candidate that we're interviewing understands the language fully. So I think that's actually a great idea. If you're reaching out to a position that specifically requires a language skill, why not leverage that you are fluent in that language because you need to be able to demonstrate both written and verbally. And just reach out, network. I mean, LinkedIn should be for all you senior somewhere where you're on every day. If you see someone, a position that you're interested in, reach out maybe in Spanish and maybe try and schedule a call, a couple of coffee. I mean, if they're willing. I mean, a lot of people love to meet new people and if you catch the right person, it would never hurt. Can I just follow up on that? I would, again, when I spoke with the letter of recommendation, that would also address that. I think it's important also to be very clear as to your level of expertise. If you have sort of a working knowledge of a language as opposed to being fluent in a language. And I think your language instructors can help you peg exactly where you are and what you should be declaring as your competence. And then I think also in the cover letter, it's important to point out that it's not just about the language. That it is something that this is part of sort of cross cultural expertise that you've developed and whether that's through Study Abroad or whether it's even working in a multi-legal environment such as a restaurant. That's something I think that's really important to point out. So, to study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, are there any other things that you did maybe that you think would help to further your Spanish-speaking practice or language practice that wouldn't require going to another country that you could do in the U.S.? So is there still a Spanish club? Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, I know when I was here, one thing we did was we invited all of the students, I don't know if they're probably still our students here from universities in Spain or Spanish-speaking countries. So we invited them to all of our Spanish club meetings and we would have, when I was abroad, we had intercombios, so you'd be assigned someone and they wanted to practice their English just as much as you wanted to practice your Spanish. So I kind of tried to bring that back to campus and whether it be just at a meeting or a couple of times we went out to dinner and just spoke with them and that really helped. So if you're not in Spanish club, get there and try to make that happen because I think that would be great. That is a great question. So Simply Smiles is a not-for-profit organization. We're based in Norwalk but we do community development work with indigenous populations in Oaxaca, Mexico, so Southern Mexico and on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota working with the Lakota people out there and Simply Smiles is based on a philosophy that we all have the power to help someone else. We all have the power to make someone smile and that's the first building block towards putting kids, adults, anyone on the path to a brighter future, which sounds super cheesy but I went on the first trip just as a high school senior not really expecting much out of it and I really just felt and believed so fully in the philosophy that you could connect with someone even if you didn't speak Spanish, even if I didn't take Spanish in high school that you can connect the people on that level and then really work together to find a solution to the problems that they face. So we do a lot of work in both communities to provide food aid, to provide medical care. We build homes and schools, provide college scholarships. We just recently offered a student from the reservation a scholarship to Fairfield University, so she just found out on Saturday that she was accepted so that will be pretty exciting. No pressure on her, she can decide not to come but I would really love for her to come and be a fellow stag. So we do a lot, I am never bored at my job, which is really great. We do a service trip through the university to the reservation every year the last week of August. To your question about what you can do if you don't study abroad, service trips are a great opportunity to do that. I was involved with Simply Smiles and so never went on a university specific trip throughout my time here but even if you aren't fortunate enough to be able to afford to go to another country, there are lots of service opportunities. Here in Connecticut, working with communities in Bridgeport and just across the country. So that's a great way to connect. All right, experience, how do you distinguish yourself and the application because those must be incredibly competitive particularly for Italy and what kind of work do you do? I don't necessarily know how I distinguish myself. In fact, this would kind of answer the first question. I didn't know that I was fluent in Italian until I wrote that application. That's where I first put the words fluent. And that was on the advice of professors here. I think that would help to me with the application was a focus on what I wanted to do when I got there. It also didn't hurt that there was this three or four year period where Italy in particular was offering more Fulbright. Italy is actually the first country that had the Fulbright grant. So it was an anniversary. But I was really focused on what I wanted to do. I wanted to research a, this is where I kept boring. I wanted to research a particular religious persecution that took place in Calabria in like 1560 and then kind of tie that to the larger counter-reformation movement that was going on. Usually when you read about that or hear about it in a class in high school or college it's Northern Italy or Central Italy. And I was really focused on the South. I think they liked that. I think a lot of the applications probably are for Florence or Bologna, Rome. And then the experience there was wonderful. Like I said, I spent most of my days in either a library or going to Cosenza which is in the Northern part of Calabria. And a few hours during the week I was in two different Italian high schools. Italian high schools, the state schools they're supposed to be a mother tongue teacher in the room for English classes. So that was technically my task there. I was the mother tongue English teacher. I learned in a lot of the schools in Southern Italy there is no mother tongue English teacher. That doesn't mean there aren't two teachers in the room but neither one speaks English, usually. And so that experience, not so much the study one but that really made me feel confident in researching and living in Italy. And just, you know, understanding the way down there, especially in the south. She just asked if in social work there seems to be a need for other languages in addition to Spanish. I mean, during my time as a social worker I would say Spanish was the primary language that we desperately needed. I can say as a nurse in Bridgeport I'm seeing a lot more Muslim patients. Also Portuguese speaking patients. No, Portuguese is not Spanish. They tell me a lot. She speaks Spanish but it sounds weird. Cause it's not. So in New York City Spanish in my experience was the most common here as well but I'm seeing other languages up here. So it's not to say it's not existing in New York. It just wasn't my experience. Hi, hi everybody. No, my question was about internships because that's definitely something that seems like a reoccurring thread and opportunities during the summertime. How were you finding most of your internships? Sounds like you had, you were thinking from high, you also had a great connection from the high school. From that internship, everybody else, how were you finding your internships? The Career Center here at here. The Career Center? I mean, if you haven't stopped in yet I highly recommend you go there ASAP. It's, I think it's only grown since I've been there. I think when I was in 2008 it was only Kathleen from what I hear it's a lot bigger. I think that's an opportunity that should be leveraged tenfold. They have incredible resources, incredible connections, contacts to get you an internship. Whether it's something that you might love or not it's still exposure to a different area or maybe you might love down the road but the Career Center I think in Fairfield is somewhere where you should go ASAP. I found my internship through an email from Dillon School of Business straight to my inbox so it was the only one I applied to and I was very lucky but I did use the Career Planning Center a lot just practicing interviews with Kath and when I was looking at other opportunities as well. So you're recommending to open your professor's emails? I'm interested. I heard that too. And if anyone is interested in GE then I'll feel free to talk to them. That's great. So that's wonderful with that invitation to come speak with you on the dimension of the Career Planning Center. Perhaps we could conclude the evening if anybody has any questions for our panelists, come up. Let's speak to them one-on-one, maybe do a little bit of networking, grab a cookie, have some coffee and then thank you for all the topics.