Hometown: New Ipswich, New Hampshire
Majors: Multi-language (French, German, Spanish)
Minors: Education studies and Sports & exercise science
Activities: Women’s Rugby team, International House, Teaching assistant for German and French, Language Resource Center Intern, Women’s Soccer, Selection committee for France Program (2005), Study Abroad program in France

Chris’ original attraction to St. Lawrence was based on the fact that a multi-language major was offered. She had taken French throughout high school and, while she wanted to continue developing her French skills, she also wanted to expand her horizons and study other languages and cultures. German was a language that she had always desired to learn, coming from a Swiss German background. She also began her Spanish studies here in order to complete the multi-language major, as well as for her own personal language development and intellectual growth.

Chris speaks French, German, intermediate Spanish and has a basic knowledge of Swiss German. She spent time living in Switzerland during the summer of 2006 and greatly improved her conversational Swiss German by spending time with her family that currently resides there. She worked in a Swiss mountain hut, where she was able to use her abilities in French and her native English to assist customers and guests from countries foreign to Switzerland.

During the summer of 2004 Chris worked as a counselor in a French language camp (Concordia language villages in Minnesota) which helped her to prepare for a possible career in foreign language instruction. Her job as a Teaching Assistant for both French and German has also helped her in this area and tied in her major curriculum with her education studies minor. Chris has also been working at the Language Resource Center in Carnegie since the spring of 2004 and has found that her job there has helped to create great relationships with faculty which may help her later in life. She also acquired many technological skills valuable to the job market, such as the implementation of different software and programs that will help with teaching or administrative work. Living in the International House at SLU has also opened up many opportunities for her to experience cultural diversity, for example through events such as Asia night and European night.

“It has been a joy to help students with their language learning abilities, through instruction both academically, as well as with their technical skills” says Chris. Her career goals include working at a language instruction or translation company, more specifically, interpreting for an international firm, or possibly teaching one of her acquired languages in a K-12 classroom.