Appreciation post for our 2022 interns
This year, five outstanding translation students have joined our company as translation interns, with four of them working in our Xiamen headquarters and one in our Fuzhou branch office.
Today, we will be saying goodbye to two of them, who will be returning to school after working for two months with us. This was their very first experience as an English-to-Chinese translator in the workplace.
MTS Project Managers and members of the HR team joined the interns for a farewell photo.
When Rachel first joined the company and sat at her desk, she was surprised by the quiet yet busy atmosphere at our office, with translators highly concentrated and focused on their work. “Everyone seemed silent, but their minds were loud, buzzing with ideas. I can see how such a peaceful atmosphere allows them to concentrate,” she commented.
She acknowledged her admiration for her project managers, too: “I could often feel how efficient the senior colleagues were in handling projects and their sense of responsibility. I also hope that, in the future, I can also be as reliable with my work. As a prospective graduate, I hope to apply the knowledge I have learned at the university level to practical situations to accumulate experience and gain insight.” Thank you, Rachel! We are sure that you will, and we appreciate all that you’ve done!
Translation intern Rachel Wang (王玥乔) proudly holding her internship diploma.
Rachel was deeply impressed by the importance of the proofreading process: “I had to review some shipping documents and insurance policies for a foreign trade company, translated by a senior in-house translator. Don’t underestimate the work that goes into proofreading! This work helped me learn a lot of professional and authentic expressions in both languages, as I learned about how professional the translation abilities of the in-house translators were at MTS.”
In turn, Alexia, an English major from Xiamen University who has just finished her two-month internship with us, thinks that real translation work is very different from the translation courses taught in school. During a brief learning period, where she learned about the strict translation quality standards of ISO9001, Alexia expressed that she feels more prepared to adapt to the workplace in the future.
One of our new interns, Helen, shared how her first few days have gone: “The first days of the internship are mainly for basic training, which includes introduction to translation, editing, proofreading and QA processes, word typesetting skills, and the basics of computer-aided translation. Before, I noticed that many details in formatting usually go unnoticed, and after going through this training, I realized that requirements for translation formatting are quite stringent.”
Mark Waters, an English-Written Translation Master’s student at Xiamen University from the US, is doing his internship with us. He expressed that through this internship he is experiencing the challenges that come with translation work, including the high volume of words requiring translation and proofreading on a daily basis with tight deadlines. But, in spite of that, he is very determined to consider pursuing a career in translation and localization industry.
Thanks to our 2022 interns for choosing Mater Translations as their first internship experience. We highly appreciate your efforts and wish all of you the best in your career!
Are you a translation student who would like to do an internship at MTS?
Are you a translation program professor who’d like to establish cooperation between MTS and your university?