Achieving dreams

Coming from the USA, Emma Page studied an MA in Translation (French and Spanish) at Lancaster. Since graduating, she’s achieved her dream of having a book-length translation published.

Pursuing passion and preparing for the future

Written by Emma Donovan Page

There are a very limited number of MA in Translation programmes in the US, and those that do exist are extremely expensive and generally take two years to complete. Even as an international student, a UK Masters cost a lot less and got me ready to enter the job market much faster than studying in my country of origin would have.

I met and became good friends with students from Lancaster University while I was studying in Montreal, which led me to look into Lancaster’s programmes specifically when I was researching my options.

I liked the fact that it was a small programme and that it included a combination of practical, industry-focused modules and more theoretical, literary work. I felt it would prepare me to work as a commercial translator, while also allowing me to pursue my passion for literary translation.

Thriving location and diverse community

I loved getting to know the surrounding area, from Lancaster and Morecambe to visiting the Lake District or Manchester on the weekends. For a smaller city, Lancaster has a really thriving arts and culture scene, so I enjoyed going to the theatre quite a lot. I like that you can always find something to do, whether that’s a night out or going for a long walk along the beautiful canals.

On campus I loved Pizzetta Republic, they serve the best coffee on campus (Italian espresso!) and it’s a great spot to sit and study for a few hours.

I loved how diverse the students were in my cohort. We were a small group, less than 10 of us, but we had people who had grown up in the local area and started the MA straight out of their undergraduate course at Lancaster, someone changing career in their 50s, someone over 70 just keeping his mind sharp in retirement, two students from China, myself from the USA. And yet everyone was really supportive and friendly, and we all became quite close by the end!

A great learning environment

I was lucky to receive a bursary that covered my tuition fees, which of course eased the financial burden significantly. My lecturers were always available to answer questions and meet outside of class hours, and I felt like they were responsive to feedback, especially because this was a relatively new course at the time.

I found the other students on my course to be really interesting and engaged, and the professors were clearly passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects.

I’m very proud of my final translation project. I continued a translation of a memoir by a Haitian writer I had begun during my undergraduate Comparative Literature degree and added a translation of an excerpt from a long-form investigative work about indigenous guerrilla fighters in Mexico. I’m very proud of the translations and my discussion of them, and I won a departmental award for the project at graduation.

Life at Lancaster

Lancaster is an approachable, friendly university, with a nice combination of a self-contained campus and a lively local area. It’s in a beautiful part of the UK, the city of Lancaster has a lovely traditional look and lots of pubs on the canals, and you’re very near to Morecambe beach, the Lake District for hiking and Manchester for big-city outings. Thanks to the large international community on campus, you’ll certainly feel welcome. The teaching is excellent, the classes are generally small and there’s flexibility to do things like learning a new language or study abroad as part of your course.

I got involved in student theatre and was in a production on campus. I loved being part of the theatre scene, it was a great way to meet people from outside my course and I really enjoyed performing. I also took advantage of the sports centre to take rock-climbing lessons and attend exercise classes. The sports centre offers a lot of very reasonably priced classes and activities, and the facilities are great.

Preparation for the future

The MA in Translation was a great stepping stone into a career as a translator. Thanks to the placement I did at a translation agency in Manchester during the spring term, I was well-prepared to start freelancing as soon as I graduated. We also had a course on computer-assisted translation (“CAT”) tools that was really useful, as modern translation software is fairly complicated and can be intimidating to learn without help.

Having the MA degree gave me a big advantage when pitching for jobs, and definitely helped me get hired without years of work experience behind me. I’ve been a full-time freelance translator since April 2018, four months after I got my diploma. I make a very comfortable living doing something I love, and the MA made it possible. I still live in the UK, but the skills and network I gained at Lancaster would serve me well anywhere in the world.

My literary translation career has also been successful thanks to my time at Lancaster. I used one of the translations I completed for my final MA project as a sample to send to publishers, and last year I signed a contract to translate the whole book. My translation of Wandering Memory (originally “Mémoire Errante”) by Jan J. Dominique is due to be published by University of Virginia Press in March 2021. Having a published book-length translation is a life-long dream of mine, so this is really exciting!

I’ve also been accepted to begin a PhD in Translation Studies at Reading University in September 2021. I’m currently waiting to hear if I will receive the funding that would make that possible, but it’s an exciting prospect and I look forward to whatever comes next!

Final thoughts on Lancaster

Lancaster is an extremely international campus. It’s a very friendly place, and people are used to having folks from all over the world in their classes. I made some very close friends from Ukraine and Belarus and went to visit them in Kiev after graduation. The campus environment is a welcoming place, and there is plenty of help available to get you settled in.