Expert: Terry Thatcher Waltz - 12/1/2010

Question
I asked a couple people for advice, and they said I should
major in something like Communications when getting my
Bachelor's degree as to broaden my abilities and to not
limit myself when finding a job as opposed to just majoring
in Chinese. I was planning on listening to them, and then
going on to get my Masters with Translations and
Interpretations as a major. If that were to work, which
colleges should I go to to achieve my goals?

I also plan on moving to Taiwan or China after I finish my
studies. I imagine it is very nice in Taiwan, what about
China?

Answer
You should go to the least expensive college you can find. Seriously.
It makes no difference at all what you major in as an undergraduate if you are planning on doing an MA in interpreting. What you will need is an amazingly extensive general knowledge of all sorts of fields -- for a start, History, Economics, Geography, all the scientific fields, and just general cultural knowledge. The idea would be to go to an inexpensive liberal arts school and get the broadest general education you possibly can. Majoring in Communications will do nothing for you in terms of the goals you state.

At some point you will also need to acquire your working languages to a very nearly native level as well.

You should definitely get a "useful" undergraduate degree as opposed to majoring in Chinese -- which will get you absolutely nowhere in terms of a job or even fluency in Chinese, looking at it from a professional perspective -- because an incredibly high proportion of students in interpreting school either drop out or graduate but never actually work as interpreters. Most burn out during their studies. It is not nearly as glamorous as it is often made out to be. Given the market realities these days, I would not advise anyone to go into T&I unless they truly felt they had no other alternative.