When I got to college, I’d completed my language proficiency requirement and was fully prepared to stop taking French, and in fact I didn’t take any French my first semester at William and Mary. However, I can honestly say that restarting French was one of the best decisions I’ve made since arriving on campus. I’ve learned first-hand that speaking French has wide-ranging benefits in many areas of study outside just grammar and literature.
By taking French at William and Mary I was able to apply to spend my sophomore year abroad in Lille, France, where I mostly studied European government and EU-US relations. This has provided me with an amazing ability to both greatly improve my French and to take a multitude of fascinating political science courses towards my government major.
I am convinced that it was largely thanks to my proficiency in French and my time abroad that I was selected for an internship with the U.S. Mission to NATO this summer in Brussels. I will be living in Belgium from May through most of August working full time in the Armaments Department of the U.S Mission to NATO, as one of about five undergraduate interns at the Mission. I will also be conducting my own research project on France and NATO while living in Brussels this summer.