Kate Archibald took her first Spanish class in high school and absolutely loved it. Since then, no matter where she’s gone, her Spanish has followed.
The third-year Schulich School of Law student has traveled to and lived in Spanish-speaking countries throughout her two Dal degrees, and her bilingualism and love for all things Spanish have greatly influenced her plans for the future.
Kate came to Dalhousie to study towards her BSc, which she completed in 2010. “I was doing my Neuroscience major, and I think about two years in I was just thinking about how much I missed [Spanish] and how much I enjoyed it,’ she says. “So I took two more classes.”
Kate learned about Dalhousie’s Campeche exchange program and realized that, with the exchange program, a double major was a possibility. The program takes students to Universidad Autónoma de Campeche in the southwest of Mexico's Yucatán peninsula for a semester.
“Campeche was a really great experience and I think I improved so much there. I got there and I knew how to write [Spanish] and I knew how to read it, but when my house mom started talking to me I was like, ‘Oh my God!’”
Considering her options
Kate explains that her time in Mexico helped her get much closer to fluency.
“I left Campeche, Mexico being much more able to understand what people were saying to me, and being able to converse, but not at a level of [complete] fluency,” Kate says. That would come later as she worked in Madrid, Spain after graduating.
Kate got a job as a conversational English teacher with the Bilingual English Development Association (BEDA). BEDA works with the Spanish government to increase the country’s bilingualism, Spain being one of the least bilingual countries in the European Union. She says it was a valuable place to fully learn Spanish because of just how little English was spoken in Madrid. Plus, she says the work to pair her English with her knowledge of Spanish helped her relearn the workings of English grammar that had seemed instinctual before.
After her time in Madrid, Kate considered starting a masters degree in Spanish, but decided to go to law school because she saw a larger scope of immediate opportunity.
Her decision, though, did not change her ability to use her Spanish. She did a 10-week internship in Nicaragua, and was also able to use her Spanish as a translator for Cuban clients at the refugee clinic she volunteered at in Halifax.
Her hope, ultimately, is to work internationally.
“I’m interested in human rights law and immigration and I think that working either in Latin American countries for human rights violations would be really interesting, or for international organizations. But I think ... [Spanish] has the potential to be really useful even in, say, staying here in Halifax,” she says, adding that her experience as a summer student with the firm Stewart McKelvey exposed her to how her language could be used to help build relationships with clients in Latin America and elsewhere.
Following her passion
Kate admits she wishes she had stronger French, but choosing to follow her passion for Spanish has had a huge impact on her education and career goals. “Being able to experience Spain with all my Spanish roommates and not as an outsider was really special, and in Nicaragua, being able to talk to locals, and talk to taxi drivers... I think it’s a really nice window into getting a little more information about people.”
When asked what advice she would give to undergraduate students, keeping in mind her experiences with multilingualism, Kate looks to the future.
“The world is becoming a smaller place, and while we’re really lucky to be able to speak the most dominant language in the world, it’s important to recognize that being able to communicate in another language is going to be valuable.”