Whether a first year Latin student or a fourth year Spanish student, all World Language students were given the opportunity to attend BVNW’s first ever World Language Professional Panel presentation this past Friday.

During their Latin, German, Spanish or French class periods, World Language students had the opportunity to hear from three different professionals talk about how learning foreign languages has impacted their careers. A total of nine different people gave presentations at various times during the day.

“It’s something new for us,” Spanish teacher Kari Hillen said. “We’re trying to remind students the importance of taking a language, and how they can possibly use it in the future- that it’s not just something that we are giving a vocabulary quiz on – that it’s relevant, and you can use it to communicate with others.”

Beyond teaching students applications of learning a foreign language, Hillen said another goal of the panel was to encourage students to continue their foreign language studies in the future- whether it be enrolling in another year at BVNW or continuing their studies in college.

“Our timing with enrollment is purposeful,” Hillen said. “I know, especially [for the] freshmen and sophomores, it’s really, really hard to see what all of this hard work can turn in to and pay off to be.”

French student and junior Alice Kuang said she was not originally planning on taking a foreign language her senior year, but Friday’s presentation caused her to rethink her decision.

“I started taking a foreign language because everyone else was taking a foreign language, so then after freshman year, I was like, ‘I should probably take a foreign language too,’” Kuang said.  “I wasn’t planning on taking a world language next year, since I only need two years for the colleges I’m looking at, but [the presentation] made me want to reconsider my choice.”

One of the panelists on Friday was Laura Conde, who was born and raised in Romania. She is currently a bilingual account manager at StoreFinancial and is fluent in four different languages. She said she believes it is important for people to have exposure to foreign languages at a young age, such as in high school.

“The earlier you start being exposed to a language, the earlier your brain starts assimilating it,” Conde said. “Without my [studies in foreign languages], I wouldn’t be where I am today…here in the United States,”

Hillen said members of the panel were recruited through students at BVNW; the panel included students’ family members and the colleagues and friends of students’ parents.

“We cast a very broad net,” Hillen said. “What better [way] to show the students how they can use their language in the real world than to access our community?”

For Kuang, exposure to these various members of the community has helped her see the impact of learning a foreign language.

“It made me realize that there’s a lot of doors languages can lead to,” Kuang said. “For us Americans, we often only learn one language and then [we] only see one’s perspective of how people think of things. When you interact with people who speak other languages, it’s interesting how they think…how they interact with their environment and social norms.”