Isobel Hackett
2020 - 2024
Postgraduate studies Princeton University, USA
Studying Spanish and Portuguese at Cambridge was one of the best decisions I could have made. I didn’t take up Portuguese until my second year, when I started to develop a particular interest in Latin American literature, but the course was designed so wonderfully and the faculty so helpful that I was able to specialise fully in Spanish and Portuguese in my final year. Being able to draw from both languages - and from the vast array of their vibrant and diverse cultures - allowed me to fully develop these interests as I started thinking about my next steps. Having now started my PhD in the US after graduation, I can firmly say that the opportunities Cambridge has given me - including spending a year studying in Latin America - have helped open many cans of worms that I can’t wait to keep exploring in the coming years. Thank you to all who made my four years what they were; I will forever be grateful.
Anisha Bakhai
Portuguese and Spanish 2022
Platform Onboarding Manager working in Distribution
Studying Spanish and Portuguese at Cambridge was a truly transformative experience. Not only did it make me a citizen of the world, but it developed my analytical, linguistic, and cultural skills beyond what I ever thought possible. What I loved most was how holistic the teaching approach is – learning to speak a language is never just that – at Cambridge you will learn about colonial histories, post-colonial realities, literature, film, and how different cultural identities come to be formed as a melange of all of these. My Year Abroad in Coimbra felt like the culmination of this learning whilst also giving me so much by way of resilience, confidence, and adaptability. It is absolutely no coincidence that MMLLers are some of the most adventurous and remarkable students around.
Mary-Hannah Oteju
2018-2022
Secondary School Teacher
Studying Spanish, French and una mica de Català at Selwyn equipped me to be a linguistically confident and culturally competent graduate. As a secondary school teacher, my foreign language training has enabled me to not only pass on my love for languages but also expose a younger generation to new cultural worlds in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa. Looking ahead to my professional future as a clinical social worker/therapist, my undergraduate degree has well-equipped me to stand out as a multi-lingual clinician in an increasingly diverse and high-need population in the southeast of the US. I’m only a year out from graduation, but it is clear to me that as foreign language graduate, the world is truly my oyster.
Alice Buckley
2018-2022
Equity Research
I’ve been working for a company called Bernstein doing equity research for 2 years. The role involves writing research reports and making models on stocks to advise investors on what companies to buy and sell. I find the work really interesting. The skills I learned in my degree are invaluable for my job – especially the research skills I developed when writing essays (reading a large amount of information, synthesising and interrogating it, and presenting it in a clear way). My year abroad also helped me to get the job as I did an internship in finance in Paris which I found via the year abroad office which meant I had relevant experience.
Oliver Wilson
2017–2021
Lecteur
I am writing this during the long summer break following my first year as a Lecteur (language teacher) at a French university, and before embarking upon my second year in this role. If teaching modern languages is what first inspired me to pursue undergraduate study in Modern and Medieval Languages, then it is this degree that has made such a career possible. I now live and work in the south of France, about an hour from the Spanish border, where I can put into practice the French and Spanish language skills that I developed over the course of my five years as an undergraduate and postgraduate student at Cambridge.
Such a move would have been unlikely, if not unimaginable, were it not for the months I spent working as an English teacher in Spain and France during my year abroad, an experience that not only granted me familiarity with education systems different to my own, but also gave me the invaluable opportunity to live in the countries whose histories and cultures I had been studying for several years. Whilst adapting to living and working abroad – much like moving to university in the first place – is not without its challenges, the rewards of such an experience are part of what makes a modern languages degree so fulfilling. For this reason, and others, my modern language studies will continue to underpin my work as I pursue further research and teaching in the higher education sector, both in the UK and abroad.
Luke Sawyer
2012 - 2016
Language teacher, curriculum developer and private tutor
My time studying MML at Cambridge was an unforgettable experience that has had a large impact on who I am today. Although it was daunting at first to be taught by some of the world's most influential thinkers in modern language studies, I always felt strongly supported and encouraged by the professors and lecturers in the faculty. After a challenging yet fulfilling first two years taking various papers in Portuguese, French and Modern Greek language and literature, I opted to spend my Year Abroad at a development education NGO in Lisbon and a small children's charity in rural northeast Brazil. Both of these experiences fostered my interest in the field of education, and I have since worked as a language teacher, curriculum developer and private tutor.
Last year I moved to Japan, and I am now looking to return to the world of academia by applying to Master's programs in Linguistics, with the ultimate goal of completing a PhD and forging a career as a university professor or postdoctoral researcher. As part of my research, I am aiming to undertake a comparative study of creole languages, which is a topic that first piqued my interest in my Portuguese linguistics lectures at Cambridge. I'm really excited to see how I can contribute to this field of research, and I'll forever be indebted to the MML faculty for nurturing my passion for languages.
