TermCoord goes Back to University

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Back to my old university, the University of Salamanca, the Faculty of Translation and Documentation. I graduated from USAL in 2013 with a master in Translation and Intercultural Mediation in English and Spanish. Coming from business school, this was a beautiful encounter with the University World, which added to my previous training from Copenhagen Business School, where I did a degree in Spanish and European Studies.

A master that eventually opened the doors for me to the translation industry and for a career within the European Union and more specifically the EU translation starting with a translation traineeship in 2015 and eventually leading me to discover terminology, which is what I do today and by that exact day of the presentation, 1 April 2019, for one year.

Back to University/Back to School is a project that allows EU employees to go back to school and ‘put a face on Europe’. This year the project was connected with the European elections to promote election participation without being political. Read more about the project here.

And this was what I told my old professors and the students on 1 April 2019 when I gave my presentation.

I explained what we do in TermCoord, the role that terminology plays in general, the terminologist profile, and in particular in the EU translation. I presented our website, termcoord.eu (see tutorial by my former trainee, Ioannis Bersos, here), and our activity, internally, serving the EU translation. In this regard, I showed them the newly launched IATE based on this tutorial by Ioannis Bersos. As well as our external activity and why we do it.

TermCoord has become a name in the industry and it is important for us to stay up to date with industry standards and academic activity, fx we teach in Luxembourg University. We also do that by participating in conferences and project work with external agents and universities, and we encourage the EU language communities to do the same.

As the point of departure of my presentation was my work, I spent some time talking about the external activity regarding networking, terminology collaboration and expert involvement which has become one of my core activities as an EU terminologist. The most recent being, Terminology Without Borders.

And upon a concrete request from the University of Salamanca, I spent some time speaking about career paths and EPSO.

All this was combined with the European elections in a ‘non political way’ and in the sole aim of encouraging the students of the master and university professors to say thistimeimvoting, because what Europe does for me in my region, in my life, in focus is not always that obvious. And that is what it is all about, to tell them what we do! Not only in the EU translation, but what Europe does for them

Going back to university was one of the most beautiful, challenging and meaningful projects that I have ever been participating in throughout my EU career, and it was not the first time that I was the face of Europe nor the first time that I went back to university since I graduated: I had previously been participating in the conference ‘Is there a life after Salamanca? Career paths and introduction to the labour market’[1] on 16 March 2016 from a distance (video) giving my testimony as a newly hired translation assistant in the Danish Translation Unit in the early days of my career.

Even though it was challenging, the feedback I got made it all worth it: ‘giving the students hope’ and ‘inspiring them’ and as Dr. Rosario Martín Ruano said, I was ‘an example of how far you can get and how you have to reinvent yourself (terminology). The students saw themselves in me but I definitely also saw myself in them, and if I moreover achieve that they will vote for the elections, my mission will be completed!

I found that especially the university professors were interested in the terminology aspect and terminology was definitely being discussed during my days at the Faculty of Translation and Documentation as well as during the interview for Radio USAL which will be published later on the blog Don de Lenguas (in Spanish).

Thank you to the University of Salamanca for receiving me and a special thanks to Dr. Rosario Martín Ruano.

In the press.

TermCoord is happy to announce that this beautiful experience has resulted in a new university collaboration between USAL and TermCoord!


[1] ¿Hay vida después de Salamanca? Salidas profesionales e inserción laboral.


Written by Stine Jensen, Terminologist at TermCoord