Sofia Kougianou, one of our recent MA Translation Studies graduates, has just started a five-month paid Schuman traineeship with the European Parliament in Luxembourg.
Sofia has followed modules on Greek translation on the MA. Being a native speaker of Greek and fluent in two more EU languages (English and French) helped her secure the traineeship in Luxemburg. The Luxembourg campus is the administrative centre of the European Parliament and hosts much of the vital administrative machinery that keeps the institution running. As a trainee she will do the same work as staff translators (e.g. translation, terminology research etc.) using state of the art translation technology tools. Sofia is one of our many students who have secured traineeships and internships with multilingual institutions (i.e. EU and UN)
“After having graduated last December from the University of Birmingham with a Master’s Degree in Translation Studies, I decided to gain some practical experience in the field of translation. More specifically, I was looking into gaining some relevant experience as a translator among the European Institutions. After having applied for a Schuman traineeship last November, I was excited to find out that I have been admitted to the program. The traineeship with a duration of five months (March-July) takes place at the European Parliament in Luxembourg. As a translator for the European Union, I work on a daily basis with texts related to the functions and the procedures of the EU. In addition, I often use translation software such as SDL Trados and Machine Translation, concepts with which I was already familiar in advance thanks to the relevant courses I followed during the MA program. Undoubtedly, the program offered me the practical tools as well as the necessary insight regarding the professional aspects of the translation industry.”