Royal Collin Gardner graduated from our program in 2016. We are happy that he has contacted us to let us know how his preparation in our program helped him to become a better firefighter.

I’ve taken a pretty unconventional career path for a Spanish major: I’m pursuing a career as a firefighter. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from UMass last May, I enrolled in a firefighter training course at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been travelling all over the country testing and interviewing for various Fire Departments. When I mention my major in relation to my career path, or vice versa, I’ll often get a confused response. It seems counter-intuitive: most Spanish majors tend to gravitate towards careers in education, interpreting, or international business, while the average college-educated fire candidate usually majors in Fire Science or Emergency Management. However, I believe that studying Spanish in college has taught me some valuable lessons that I will take with me throughout my career in the fire service.

I decided to go to UMass because of a unique program Amherst Fire Department offers called the Student Force. The Student Force allows students to staff an engine company and respond to calls with full time firefighters. However, while UMass is one of the only colleges in the nation with a program like this, there is no degree program offered that’s geared towards Fire Science, Emergency Medical Services or Emergency Management, and as a Freshman I was at a bit of a loss when it came time to choose my major. I decided to major in Spanish for a simple reason: I wanted to improve my Spanish language skills. Over the course of my major, I’ve heard multiple professors say this is actually a bad reason for majoring in Spanish. If you really want to learn Spanish, the best way to do that is to take a low level class or two and then go live in a Spanish-speaking country for a year. But as an 18 year old, the prospect of improving my Spanish skills was motivation enough to major in Spanish. I had lived in Spain for two six month periods as a kid, and I had gone back and visited many times. I had many friends in Spain who I was still in touch with, and I wanted to improve my Spanish skills so that I could better communicate with them. I definitely improved my Spanish during my time as a Spanish major. Like most non-native speakers, I’ll still have the occasional grammatical slip-up, or search for a word every now and again, but the many hours I spent reading, writing, listening to and speaking in Spanish over the course of my major have paid off in a big way.

While the desire to learn and improve my Spanish-speaking abilities may not be the best of reasons to choose the Spanish major, knowing how to speak Spanish will almost certainly be very valuable during my career. There are 41 million Spanish speakers in the United States today, making up 13 percent of the population. Wherever in the country I end up, there is almost certainly going to be a Spanish-speaking population. In the fire service, being able to communicate with victims is crucial. At a structure fire, for example, escaped occupants can give the responding firefighters invaluable information about the layout of the structure, fire conditions, and victim location. Emergency medical care is increasingly part of a firefighter’s duties as well: almost every full-time firefighter in the country is an Emergency Medical Technician or Paramedic, and communicating with the patient is absolutely crucial to delivering quality medical care. Often when emergency medical responders don’t speak the language of the patient they are assisting, they are forced to rely on over-the-phone translators to communicate. For these reasons, bilingual firefighters are often very highly sought out in areas with high Spanish-speaking populations.

An aspect of the Spanish major I didn’t think about when I chose it at 18 is how valuable learning about the many cultures that make up the Spanish-speaking world could be to a firefighter. The cultures of the Spanish-speaking world have had a profound impact on the broader culture of the United States. In 2015 the U.S. census bureau determined that there were 56.6 million people of Hispanic origin living in the United States, making them the largest racial or ethnic minority in the country. In any city I go to, the Latino and Hispanic communities will very likely have an influence on the larger community, and having studied the literature, history, and culture of those communities will help me better connect with those populations. On a deeper level, studying the nuances of cultural and political issues in the Spanish-speaking world has given me a good framework for understanding the complex issues that firefighters face daily. Firefighters often deal with cultural issues. For example, they often respond disproportionately to poor and minority neighborhoods. Understanding the cultural and political dynamics at play in those communities can be very valuable for a first responder, especially if he is not from the community in question. One of the best and most interesting experiences I had as a Spanish major was attending Holyoke Bound, a gathering of students and educators geared towards learning about issues affecting the Puerto Rican population in Holyoke. The day consisted of listening to speakers involved in the local Puerto Rican community, a musical presentation, a delicious traditional Puerto Rican lunch, and workshops that focused on issues facing the community. I learned a lot and got a lot out of the event, and I remember thinking at the time how valuable a day like that could be for first responders. Even though I didn’t work in Holyoke, engaging with the issues that faced it taught me a lot about the complexity of the issues that face similar communities will serve me well throughout my career.

Studying and discussing the complexities of cultural and political issues as a Spanish major will also help me better understand and process the “big picture” of issues that I deal with every day as a firefighter. Firefighters often deal with contentious political and cultural issues: almost all career firefighters are union members, fire departments sometimes come into political conflict with municipal governments over budget disputes, affirmative action and diversity in hiring is currently a big issue within the fire service, and firefighters are often most active in marginalized and poor communities. I believe that having approached similarly contentious cultural issues in the classroom will inform my perspective when I face them day to day. Right now, I believe it is not my place to comment on any of these issues. New firefighters are often reminded for good reason that they have one mouth and two ears, and I have not even been hired as a full time firefighter yet. However, I hope that having studied similar issues in the classroom will influence me to develop a balanced and thoughtful perspective on issues that I face throughout my career.

Studying Spanish is not the most direct route to a career in the fire service. Generally the quickest route to becoming a competitive firefighting candidate is to pursue firefighting and EMS certifications. However, I could not recommend studying Spanish highly enough to an aspiring firefighter who may want to pursue education not directly related to the fire service, or perhaps a Fire Science student looking to pick up a minor or second major. The combination of the skill of speaking Spanish with the lessons learned and perspective gained as a Spanish major can be incredibly valuable for any firefighter.