Category Archives: Spanish and Health

Spanish & health certificate and possible job opportunities

What brought my interest to the Spanish field? Well, as a child I have seen that there are a lot of language barriers that don’t allow individuals to have access to healthcare or other public services. My parents both speak Spanish because they are from Guatemala. They understand a little bit of English, but they can’t speak it. They always need an interpreter, but sometimes there isn’t one available. Due to this, I decided to practice my Spanish more in order to develop it further and support my community, since being bilingual in Spanish and English I could help my community to not feel uncomfortable when there isn’t a person who can translate the language they don’t understand. 

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To All My Spanish and STEM Majors

This is dedicated to all the students who are either dual-degreeing, double majoring, minoring, or certifying in Spanish in addition to their primary STEM major. As a biochemistry and Spanish dual-degree student, I seeked to find the intersection between these two fields and I’d like to share more about my perspective in this existing overlap. 

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Being an Interdisciplinary Student

As a freshman, I was subjected to endless icebreaker games and introductions with each new class, club meeting, etc., as all freshmen are, but I always felt a bit lost on how to define myself academically. Meeting with advisors and introducing myself to professors, I was always overly aware of the raised eyebrows and slight pauses when I mentioned that I was a pre-med student with a humanities major.

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The Beautiful Thing About Plans Is That They Are Meant to Change

When I applied to college I had no idea what career I wanted to pursue. I knew I was going to major in Spanish because I excelled at learning the language and enjoyed learning about different cultures and wanted to continue to broaden my horizons. I knew that my career probably wouldn’t be centered around Spanish, but I thought it would be helpful to apply a second language to whatever career I landed on. Fast forward spring semester Freshman year and I’m trying to decide what I should add as my second major. The beauty of the Spanish major is that it is only 36 credits so I had plenty of room to explore different options. I landed on Communication because at that point I still wasn’t sure what path a was headed towards, and this was a broad enough choice with a variety of career options so I didn’t feel trapped in a niche. After taking a few Communication classes I was starting to think I wanted to do something with social media marketing or media production. I was taking classes like Intro to Studio Directing and was my sorority’s Marketing Director so everything seemed to be pointing me in that direction.

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Reflecting to connect: bridging my two majors

“What do you want to do when you graduate?” The inevitable question for all college kids. As an indecisive person with respect to every detail of my life, even the most trivial, this is the question I do everything to avoid. I am a double major in Spanish and public health, two areas in which I feel a lot of passion and curiosity. Everyone always says, “what a good combination!” to which I just nod and smile, not really having considered what makes it so. Before this year, I did not think much about what I could do with both majors post-UMass. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to reflect on how the two complement each other and what I can do with them.  

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Spanish and Healthcare

Working in healthcare, arguably one of the most important aspects is communication. Constantly, as a healthcare worker interacting with patients, be it via spoken or written words, communication is an essential factor in patient care. Therefore, it is imperative that all forms of communication between the healthcare professional and the patient are effective and within the best interest of the patient. If there are errors within communication, it is possible the patient may be adversely impacted, because ultimately, the fate of that patient’s life is within the hands of the healthcare professional.

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Translating Documents into Portuguese during COVID-19

During Spring 2020 I took a Spanish translation class that transitioned to online learning and we began translating COVID documents for the community. At the same time, I was taking a public health course where we were exploring the impact that COVID is currently having on the community. I decided to translate COVID documents into Portuguese because I realized that if the Spanish community was in need of these documents then it was likely that the Portuguese community needed them as well. From my public health course, I learned that communication is key for getting the community to make positive changes towards a better community. I am grateful that I got to make a positive impact on the community. These two courses taken together gave me a better understanding of how connected public health is to communication and how I could use my knowledge of Portuguese to benefit the public health movement towards a healthier country.

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Double Majoring in Nursing and Spanish

Hi. I am a student double majoring in Nursing and Spanish at UMass Amherst. In addition to that, I am pursuing a Spanish and Health Certificate that is also offered by UMass. I am from Western Massachusetts, specifically Holyoke. My mother is Puerto Rican while my father is of Irish decent. Holyoke is a city with a 52% population of Latinos. Growing up most of my peers and friends were Latino. I’ve been to Puerto Rico plenty of times, since most of my mother’s side of the family still lives there. I am bilingual and am already fluent in Spanish. I love the music and culture. These are primary reasons why I chose to have Spanish as my secondary major, although there are other reasons too.

I chose Nursing for a variety of different reasons. My main inspiration to become a nurse comes from my desire to care for people who need it. Helping others is something that is part of my personality and it is something I love to do. Helping patients recover from their conditions, while helping them and their families get through their difficult situations emotionally. Seeing people suffer affects me and drives me to help them rid their pain and troubles. The most important thing is the positive impacts and outcomes that come from helping other human beings is rewarding. I believe that nursing is more than a career or profession, it is a lifestyle.

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Mi latinidad and love for science

Hello! I am a student double majoring in Biochemistry and Spanish. I am also planning on getting the Spanish and Health Certificate offered at UMass. My spanish major relates greatly to my biochemistry major because it allows me to formulate my thoughts through different lenses. Many times in the biochemistry core classes students only focus on memorizing and analyzing material in a more factual way. My Spanish major has allowed me to take classes where we discuss humanitarian problems occurring not just in medical settings, but all over the globe. I truly believe taking Spanish classes have allowed me to mentality relax during the semester and not stress too much over my science courses. I do believe studying is important but my Spanish class discussion reminds me that there are far more important things than just your studies to worry about. My Spanish class discussion reminds me there is work to be done, not until I graduate from college or medical school, but change that can be worked for currently. I truly believe my Spanish and biochemistry majors complement each other. Taking classes in the liberal arts and science college is such an amazing curriculum to follow. The Spanish classes allow me to stay true to my roots by reminding me of the beauty in my latinidad and learning to embrace it, even as it shows up in my science careers. Being aware of one’s identity is super important as it allows youth to acknowledge what position you are in and how to manipulate this in a beneficial way for others. Helping others looks differently, but the reason and passion to help should always come from selfless motives. 

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How to be a pre-health Spanish major

One of the first things that you learn as a pre-health student in university is that you can major in whatever you want, as long as you complete the pre-requisites for graduate schools. While this is 100% accurate, a lot of students do not take advantage of this because it can be difficult to manage the pre-requisite STEM courses while also balancing the requirements of a completely unrelated major.

However, difficult ? impossible. I am a senior pre-dental student at Umass, where I am finishing dual degrees in biology and Spanish, a minor in Portuguese, and the Spanish & Health Certificate. I have learned a lot along the way, and want to share my experience with other pre-health students who are considering majoring in Spanish, or any other non-STEM major.

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