As I wrote about here, and here, my lemonade-out-of-lemons project during the pandemic was doing the Glendon College/York University Master of Conference Interpreting (MCI) program, which moved online this year. It was a huge challenge and a great opportunity (more on that below), and last week I got the exciting news that I passed the exit exams and am officially an MCI. I’m really glad I jumped on this chance, and it’s a relief to have finished the program and passed the exit exams…now I just have to decide what to do with the degree!
How second semester went
In the two posts I linked to above, I wrote about my first month, and then my first semester as an MCI student. At that time we had some hope that Canada would open up to international students and we’d be able to be on campus at Glendon for the January-April term, but COVID had other plans, so we remained online. Second semester included the same classes we took during first semester, interspersed with some really great intensive courses with Helen Campbell, Michelle Hof, and Andy Gillies, which added a lot to our experience. As in the first semester, we also had the opportunity to interpret for many live events at Glendon, including a lot of conferences and seminars for Black History Month. Otherwise, things were much the same as during the first half of the year: I kept working part time doing translation, teaching online courses, and doing a little court interpreting, but the workload was manageable because there still was not much else to do during COVID.
The exit exam process
Classes ended in mid-April, and then we had about six weeks to focus on preparing for our exit exams. These are high-stakes, because at Glendon, as in most AIIC-endorsed conference interpreting programs, you don’t get the degree until/unless you pass the exit exams, no matter how you’ve done in the classes. I did the degree in English (A) and French (B), so I had four exit exams: a six-minute consecutive and a 12-minute simultaneous in both directions. Although Glendon offers retake opportunities, my goal was to pass all four exams on the first try so that I could just get the degree and move on with actually finding conference interpreting work.
I do best with a lot of structure, so I developed a really simple practice routine and just set a goal of going through that routine every single day, knowing that if I aimed for seven days a week, I’d actually probably do six days. I got this tip from Athena Matilsky when I worked with her to prepare for the Colorado Court interpreter exam. My routine was:
- Listen to French news (usually France 24 or France Culture) for around 15 minutes
- Practice numbers on the website numerizer for around 15 minutes
- Interpret one consecutive speech, alternating days between English and French
- Interpret one simultaneous speech, alternating days between English and French
This took around an hour, and I found that removing the analysis paralysis of deciding what to practice was really helpful. Instead of focusing on the best or optimal practice for that day, I just did the same sequence of exercises over and over again. I also practiced with other students from my program so that we could give each other feedback, which was also very helpful.
Exit exam week
We took our exams from home, using a platform called GoReact. I liked GoReact a lot because it plays the source video and records you at the same time, so that you don’t have to worry about running multiple platforms. We were able to practice with GoReact a bunch of times so that we wouldn’t be stressed about how to operate it on exam day, which helped a lot. I decided to control absolutely everything I could control during exam week, because I wanted to feel that if I didn’t pass, it was purely because my skills weren’t up to the standard that the evaluation jury expected, not because I was underprepared or because I didn’t have my exam-taking environment set up properly. My husband had the opportunity to go out of town and I encouraged him to do that so that I would have the house to myself and be able to be on my own schedule, and the night before my first exam, I went to a two-hour yoga class with live harp music and went straight to bed when I got home. A few other tips that our instructors and fellow students gave me that really helped:
- Make a checklist, so that you don’t sit down on exam day and realize that you don’t have a pen, or that your notebook is out of pages, or whatever. Include seemingly obvious things like getting a drink of water and going to the bathroom 10 minutes before the start time. This sounds really basic, but I wanted to set everything up with as little left to chance as possible and I knew I would be nervous on the day of the exam. Tip from fellow student Amélie Roy.
- Rather than focusing on giving a Carnegie Hall performance on exam day (which you probably won’t do because you’ll be nervous), focus on using the prep period to improve your overall skill level, so that if you do, let’s say 75% of your best on exam day, it’s still good enough to pass.
- Whatever happens on exam day, don’t stop once you’ve started a speech. If you have an internet glitch, or think it’s the wrong speech, or miss an entire sentence, or whatever, just keep going, because there’s still a chance you will pass, and if you stop in the middle of the speech, you will definitely fail.
My first set of exams was English into French (which was good for me, because it’s my harder direction and I got it over with first), then we had a rest day, then French into English. In the end I thought that the exam speeches were about what I expected: neither significantly easier nor significantly harder than I thought they would be. I felt very drained afterward, from the tension and anticipation, but I also felt that I had done a solid performance, and if I failed, there really was nothing to do except study more and try again.
But I passed! I was prepared to retake any exams that I had failed, but it’s also a relief to have successfully completed the program and be able to move on to looking for work. If anyone has questions about the Glendon program or about doing an MCI when you’re not 22 years old (I’m 49), just let me know in the comments. And if you too are harboring a big, crazy dream, go for it! It’s not too late, but someday it will be, and the time is going to pass anyway, so get going!
Hi Corinne, I had seen on Twitter over the past year that you had enrolled at Glendon, but somehow your first two blogposts escaped my attention! Big congrats on passing your exams the first time! I just caught up on your year-long journey and am appreciative of you taking the time to share and break down your experience. I’m especially happy to hear you found the time positive and worthwhile; I’ll be beginning my own MCI journey this fall, with much trepidation, so hearing your story gives me more confidence. My questions for so long have revolved around whether court and conference interpreters make enough to financially justify either shelling out the money, or setting aside your freelance business for 1-2 years. In your case it sounds like it was abundantly worth it! I plan to put together periodic blog posts for my upcoming program, including breaking down the financials and why I chose the program I did. As always, I appreciate your candor and down-to-earth writing. You’ve long been a professional inspiration.
Thanks, Andrew, and that’s awesome that you’re starting an MCI program! I think you’ll love it and find it beneficial, wherever you’re going. The Glendon program was (by US standards) really affordable. Less than US $20,000 and you pay it in three installments stretched out over the year. I’m excited to read your blog posts!!
Dear Corinne, huge congrats, I’m so happy for you that you passed for the first time! Following your blog posts I really enjoyed your reports and how – with pretty much anything – you turned this endeavour and experience into professional encouragement and practical assistance to colleagues.
Your writings also made me utterly grateful that my EMCI (the European accredited version) degree was not only much cheaper, but the university was also only 20 minutes away by public. It’s good not to take things for granted, like an excellent institution with great teachers and a training programme so close to you.
I do envy you for some of your teachers, especially for Andrew Gillies. ☺️
I’m fully convinced that your consecutive and court interpreting experience, along with your dedicated marketing approach is going to yield fruit in a short period of time.
The most important skills you need – interpretation and doing it online – are already there. Hopeful that in person events will return soon!
Congrats and celebrate!
Thank you Gabriella, that means a lot and I really appreciate it!
Hi, Corinne! Thanks for sharing your experience! I am also considering doing MCI, this year, but struggling to find any information about, say, schedule – how much time the classes take per day on average? How much homework are you supposed to do? Is it feasible to combine MCI with interpreting work? I am aslo not 22 (36 actually), so I do have work to do and family to take care of…Would really appreciate your thoughts on this and some insider info 😉
Hi Natalia and thanks for your message, and that’s very cool that you’re also thinking of doing the MCI! Feel free to send me an e-mail at corinne@translatewrite.com if you want to ask anything more detailed, but off the top of my head, I would say:
-On average we had class about 10 hours a week, but the schedule is pretty variable: we had a few intensive classes that were interspersed with our other classes, plus we interpreted for live events for York University, and the class schedule is generally set pretty close to when the semester starts.
-I kept working as a translator, but I took on very little interpreting work during the year, for the reasons mentioned above (lack of time in general, plus I wanted to be available for all classes and program-related interpreting assignments).
-At Glendon, the Year 1 classes have a fair bit of actual homework, I did direct entry to Year 2 so I can’t really speak to that specifically. In Year 2, we mostly had our own practice sessions plus interpreting assignments for York. I listened to French news and podcasts an hour a day outside of class, and I did about three interpreting practice sessions a week during first semester, then ramped that up to an hour a day during second semester, then two hours a day during the three months before the exit exams.
Let me know if that helps!
Hello, Corinne and Natalia!
I might be able to help shed some light on the workload you can expect during the first year of the MCI, since I went through it in 2020-2021 (I’m almost done with year 2 this year). Corinne is right about there being a lot more homework during the first year. The average time spent in class per week was 10 hours with the classes taking place mostly in the morning or afternoon. Add 3 more hours per week in class during the second semester since that’s when we had the only theory-based course in the program (it mainly involved listening to very interesting guest speakers and then having a class discussion posted on a forum). I calculated the average time it took me to complete the homework and practice sessions outside of class to be anywhere from 10-20 hours, depending on the week and the number of assignments (keep in mind, I’m a slow learner and need to review new information many times to fully grasp it, so the time spent is dependent on your learning style). I’ll try to give a brief breakdown of how my year looked in terms of the homework we were given. Each instructor recommended that we spend roughly 2 hours per day (per class, so about 10-12 hours) completing exercises and practicing what we learned. You also have readings to do; on average I found it only took a couple hours per week to finish the required readings. Some written assignments were spread out through the year (e.g. 2 short essays, writing a reflection on a topic discussed on the forum, class discussions, short quizzes), weekly exercises were we recorded ourselves and uploaded it for commentary and feedback from the instructor (I found these could be completed in less than an hour and only a few classes asked you to hand in weekly recordings), and at least 3 individual presentations were assigned (they would usually give us several weeks to prepare for these, unless you presented first). On top of this, I practiced with my classmate once a week for about 2 or 3 hours together. I found I needed the extra practice outside of class because I entered the program with almost no prior knowledge or experience in interpreting and I discovered I had a lot of refining to do in my mother tongue which, due to living in Canada for 15 years, is not my dominant language. One aspect I found challenging was that you cover three settings where interpreting takes place: Healthcare interpreting, Court interpreting, and Conference interpreting. The techniques and strategies for interpreting in each setting is slightly different, so you have to become comfortable and flexible with adjusting the expectation of how you interpret in each setting. The focus during the first year for conference interpreting will be on consecutive interpreting. During the second semester they start introducing you to simultaneous interpreting and how to prepare for it for the second year.
I was able to dedicate a lot of extra time outside of what might have been required to do well in the program because I have no dependents, I had chosen to dedicate most of my time to the MCI, and I was only working a maximum of 10 hours per week. I hope this break down from one of the insiders can help paint a better picture of what you might expect in terms of the time commitment if you do decide to enter the Year 1 of the MCI. Good luck if you do go ahead with it! I found it very challenging, but it was definitely rewarding.
Wow, thanks Jacqueline for that really helpful information!! That’s great that you’re in Year 2, and best of luck with the exit exams!!
Thank you! I’m following your suggestions on the blog and those of my fellow MCI graduates in order to, hopefully, pass my exams in one go. I hope all is going well with you and your endeavours for this year!
Best of luck!! I think the trick is to start about three months before the exits and practice about an hour a day until classes end, then try to bump it up to two hours a day. If you do that 5+ times a week, I think that gives you the best chance of passing.
Congratulations, Corinne! I’ve been following you for a while now. Your blog and podcast with Eve were what got me kickstarted as a translator. Thank you for that!
Two questions: is everything alright with Eve? I’m assuming life just got in the way of the podcast?
And two: can you speak to how the younger crowd in your MCI program (or in others) fared, perhaps relative to those around your age? You joked a little bit in this post and a previous one about not being 22—being 21 and starting a CI program this fall, I am now even more nervous 🙂 I feel like I’ll be at a disadvantage in terms of experience compared to the older folk.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Hi Ryan and thanks for your message! Most importantly congrats on starting your conference interpreting program, and also everything’s fine with Eve, we’ve just decided to pause the podcast (you can hear all about it here https://speakingoftranslation.com/2021/06/21/pressing-pause/). My thoughts on doing a conference interpreting program when you are actually 21: you have tons of advantages, where do I even start? First of all you have your whole career to take advantage of this degree, which is huge. Also you probably have more energy and fewer worries and constraints than those of us who have kids and spouses and houses and pets and aging parents and all of that. And although I’m not a neuroscientist, I would assume that you have an actual cognitive advantage as well in terms of processing speed and how fast you learn things.
Being older has lots of advantages too, primarily (for me/in my opinion) in terms of mindset and perspective. I know myself a lot better and care a lot less about what other people think than when I was 21. I know how to become good at something, how to talk myself off a ledge, and how to break a seemingly insurmountable goal into doable steps, and you do a lot of all of that in a conference interpreting program. But there are also a lot of opportunities offered by conference interpreting that you will be able to take advantage of, and that I’m simply too old for. I’m not going to learn Spanish now, so I probably can’t work in the UN system (UN English booths almost always interpret from both French and Spanish). I feel grateful to have been with a guy I adore for 22 years, but he hates cities and lives to recreate in the mountains, so I’m not going to move to Paris or Brussels or the Hague, which I would have done in a second when I was in my early 20s and single. I’m excited to hear how your program goes! E-mail me at corinne@translatewrite.com if you want to talk about anything else.
Hi Corinne. You are not alone. I am going to be 44 this summer and I am seriously considering this program. I hope to be able to join the likes of you at MCI and benefit from what this program has to offer.
One question that mostly interests me is where does the MCI stand now in terms of administering the second year of the program on campus taking into account Covid and pandemic related restrictions? What do you think? One of the things that I like about this program is that you get this first hand experience, but I don’t know how this will play out and it will be a pity to miss it.
Thanks, Ilham! That would be a question for the program staff; I’d contact them directly and ask. I know that first semester this year was still online, but I’m not sure where they’re at with that right now. Best of luck with it!
Hi Corinne.Congratulations on passing the exit exam!! Your blog is very inspiring to me, I’m 43 and plan to apply to Glendon MCI. I’m curious to hear about your experience in looking for conference interpreting work as a new graduate.
Congratulations on your MCI ambitions! I’d say finding conference interpreting work is going about how I expected: it’s a lot of marketing, but the work, at least for French<>English, is out there if you hunt it down! E-mail me at corinne@translatewrite.com if you want to talk more!