Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Miguel's Advice to First Year TI and CI Students


Flora: How did you spend your first summer? How many hours did you spend on practice every day?
Miguel: I had a very difficult first year. I do three language track, so I had course overload and work overload. I wasn't eating or sleeping as well as I should, and it was detrimental to my performance in the first year. I had five tests to take in August. 
So I thought I were going home to sleep for two weeks. I didn't think that I were sleeping for two months. 15 hours a day. Three weeks before coming back to take my exam, I began practicing and enacted the interpreter in me by practicing. To my surprise, I did better than I did in the first year. I passed all my exams and did well in my second year. So your brain needs some down time. Use some time for your body and brain to recuperate.  
I feel the need to share my story. Some excellent interpreters seem never need to overcome the hurdles that I had. I grew up feeling pretty secure about myself. If I set my mind, I can do it. I experienced failure for the first time in Monterey that I was giving myself 110% and not being enough. Have I been fooling myself all the time? Was I not that good? I remembered how frustrated for me being in that position and was always looking at myself and saying to myself that I was the problem, I was not of the caliber. I overlooked that people take different paths to get to the same goal. 
Shifting the perspective was really helpful. Understanding that I just needed more time and I needed a different route helps me tremendously for my second year. Though everything was really fast, I had the confidence. I may fail my professional, I may fail my finals, but I will come back to do it again. 


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