Home Page

Program Requirements
Curriculum
M.A. Option
Course Descriptions
Financial Aid

Admissions

FAQs

Calendar of Events

Resources

In the News

Why Study Translation

Translation has become one of the fastest-growing professions.

This is because of the rapid rise of multinational businesses and of the use of electronic communication: the volume of trans-national texts (letters, contracts, emails, instruction manuals, books, computer software, promotional and training videos) has increased tremendously. These texts need to be translated.

(l-r) Students Christine Bucher, Fatoumata Keita, Beth Rose, and Professor Susan Rascón at the American Translators Association Conference

If you speak two languages fluently, you are well positioned to become a translator, but this is not enough. In a translator-training program such as our Graduate Certificate Program in Translation you can acquire the linguistic, cultural and technical expertise to give you a competitive edge in this rapidly expanding job market.

Translators generally work from their second language into their native language. So to be a successful translator you should have an excellent command of your native language. You must write well, enjoy writing and pay attention to detail. Our technical writing courses will help you hone these skills. Financial statements, annual reports, user manuals, scientific articles, medical and technical and legal documents--each type of writing deals in very particular concepts and has its own specialized vocabulary and stylistic conventions. In our translation courses you'll familiarize yourself with these, practice them and learn about additional resources for the thorny translation problems you may encounter. Today's translator also needs to know how to use the many new tools that are now available: machine translation and computer-aided translation software, translation memory and software-localization programs, international language databases, and more. Our course in terminology management and translation software is designed to acquaint you with the latest in translation technology.

GCIT Program courses will provide you with the professional linguistic skills, technical training and appropriate familiarity with technical tools that will make your foreign language background marketable for a broad variety of international jobs in areas as diverse as in-house and free-lance translation, lexicography, terminology, software localization and project management.