Every year, prospective students, as and after making their decisions about which universities to attend, seek out information about the details of life and work at the places they’ve applied to and been accepted. Approximately fifty people, seventy-five at the most crowded time, consisting of both prospective students and their family members, spent the hour between 4 and 5 pm on April 3rd, 2025 attending the annual Global Languages Student/Alumni Panel over Zoom in the now-common webinar format. The lack of necessity for physical presence, and the ability to duck in and out as needed without disturbing anyone, assisted in the panel’s capacity to speak to so many people.
Eva Dessein, Senior Lecturer in French, led one recent alumnus and three current undergraduate students in discussion of MIT’s Global Languages courses, instructors, majors, minors, concentrations, and general experience. Michael Sutton, ’23, has a minor in Chinese, while Kate Augustyn, ’25, is minoring in German, Jada Li, ’25, is minoring in Spanish, and Kelton Aldridge, ’27, is concentrating in Arabic. They all had differing reasons for selecting the languages they study, ranging from the impulse of a moment, to wanting to strengthen a familially spoken language, to a language studied as part of a complicated long-term career and life plan. All of them also went abroad with MISTI, meaning they could inform prospective students of exactly how language study intersects with summer internships and longer terms of study abroad.
Over the course of the hour, each alum or student explained how and why they began study of the language they took at MIT, how they use each language now and hope to in the future, and what goals they have to continue study after their college years. Joyce Roberge, Academic Programs Specialist at Global Languages, assisted Ms. Dessein with keeping a lively conversation going which could have lasted far beyond the allotted time.
Each of the student or former student discussants wound up truly loving their language studies, and managed to communicate clearly and vividly what they enjoyed and found valuable about Global Languages at MIT specifically, giving many prospective students the information they need to decide their future academic plans.
