Valerie Hathaway

After taking Chinese for all four years of high school, Valerie Hathaway knew that she wanted to continue her studies in college. Carthage’s location and blossoming Chinese program in the Modern Languages Department sold her on the school. After graduation, she hopes to work as a translator for the government or an international corporation.

“I plan on working with people, so by getting a basic understanding of how humans think and perceive situations, I can apply this knowledge while doing various translating jobs,” Valerie says of her double major in psychology and Chinese. “I have always been interested in psychology because I love to learn how the brain works. I also decided on Chinese because it is quickly becoming a much needed language to learn. Plus, I liked learning a different and unique language and wanted to continue.”

The faculty is Valerie’s favorite part of the Chinese program at Carthage. She appreciates that they take time to help struggling students with the more complex parts of learning the language, such as new sentence patterns and memorizing the characters.

“The Chinese program is filled with professors who enjoy teaching their students the language,” she said. “They are organized and are more than willing to sit down with the students to make sure their majors and minors are going smoothly.”

The Target Language Experts program has also been helpful to Valerie, who describes it as a “give and take program” where the TLEs teach English-speakers about their languages and cultures, while the English-speaking students teach the TLEs about the English language and U.S. American culture.

Valerie plans to study abroad in Spring 2012. She also visited China for a J-Termclass, touring the cities that line the Silk Road. During her time at Carthage, Valerie has also been asked to participate in a research study program, and is a member ofPi Delta Chi service sorority, Alpha Lambda Delta honors fraternity, and Chinese Club.