Lo que hacen nuestros estudiantes

ESTUDIANTES

This summer I interned part-time in social media and outreach at Democracy Now! en Español. Democracy Now! is an independent non-profit news broadcast that investigates stories that the mainstream media tends to ignore. For instance, did you know that in the 1980's Mitt Romney accepted money from El Salvadorian mafia members in charge of the mass-murders of innocent people in order to finance his investment firm Bain Capital? As a continuation of what I learned in my Spanish in the Media course last spring with Professor Rangil, a team of interns and I were responsible for managing Democracy Now! en Español's Twitter, Facebook and Sound Cloud accounts.  Every day the headlines would be sent to Uruguay, translated into Spanish and then we as a team were responsible for creating interactive posts on Twitter and Facebook to engage our cyber followers.  Social media has created what is being called "la nueva democracia" or "the new democracy" because it provides a platform for everyone with access to be heard.  Did you know that this past May, Mexican university students against media coverage of their presidential elections gathered in protest and created a social movement simply by trending the hashtag "#YoSoy132" on Twitter? Yea, they did!

Upon arriving at Skidmore College in 2007, I initially planned to pursue a minor in Spanish. However, after several excellent classes with faculty such as professors Rubio, Burton, Loyola and Lander, I was encouraged and inspired to pursue a full major in Spanish. In addition to the wide variety of language, literature and film courses offered, I was able to complement my experience at Skidmore with one semester abroad in Argentina and a second in Panama. Finally, in my senior year, I was encouraged by several Spanish faculty to apply for a Fulbright grant. With their help, I was able to combine my Spanish major with my interest in Environmental Studies, and later received funding from Fulbright in order to conduct research in Argentina on environmental literature in that country. I currently reside in Buenos Aires, Argentina and make constant use of the skills that I learned at Skidmore, both in the personal and professional realms. I highly recommend the Spanish program and encourage current students to try a class - at the very least, it will allow you to travel without sounding like a complete gringo! - Sarah Green, Skidmore College 2011