S
aluti da Bologna! My name is Leah Kaplan (’04) and I was a Latin American Studies major and Italian Cultural Studies minor. It’s difficult to say how learning foreign languages haven’t shaped my life: upon graduation I moved to Italy and enrolled in a Masters program at the University of Bologna in History and Culture of Food which was taught in Italian, Spanish and French. I’ve lived in Bologna, Italy ever since. While one day I hope to realize my dream of leading food and cultural tours of Italy, I love my job teaching English at the University of Bologna.
While it may seem counterintuitive, my knowledge of Italian is fundamental to being successful in my job. I’m acutely aware of the linguistic difficulties my students face when learning English due to the structure of their language. Furthermore, my understanding of what it means to learn a foreign language and live in a different culture allows me to have a deep understanding of what my students face.
I chose to study Spanish and Italian while I was at Wellesley because out of everything I studied it just felt so natural and enjoyable to me. Had I not been so scared of the statistics requirements, I probably would have been a linguistics major! It’s all the same now because languages eventually took me down a path that has been thoroughly satisfying. I’m currently in a distance learning MA program in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the University of Portsmouth, UK.