| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Does a degree in translation/interpretation make your search for good clients/prices easier? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Mario Chavez (X) 
Local time: 07:29
English to Spanish
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| I don't get it | Mar 8, 2016 |
Note to Proz: please release the 45-character limit on poll answer options, as well as on the poll question itself.
I don't understand the question. Several scenarios pop up for interpretation:
a) A degree makes finding clients easier
b) A degree makes searching for good prices (in what???) easier
c) A degree makes searching for good clients easier. Ah, that depends on your definition of a good client.
Once again, we're faced with a false... See more Note to Proz: please release the 45-character limit on poll answer options, as well as on the poll question itself.
I don't understand the question. Several scenarios pop up for interpretation:
a) A degree makes finding clients easier
b) A degree makes searching for good prices (in what???) easier
c) A degree makes searching for good clients easier. Ah, that depends on your definition of a good client.
Once again, we're faced with a false dychotomy: good clients vs. bad clients, as if the markets we're working in consist of only those two varieties.
Now, with your permission, I'm going outside to scream in frustration. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 07:29
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Different perceptions as well | Mar 8, 2016 |
David Earl wrote:
My experience in Northern Germany is that direct, major customers prefer seeing a degree in the area of specialization (translation in this case). Having contacts may, or may not help, with such preferences/perceptions of certifications, especially in a corporate environment. For example, corporate decisions may trump the experience of the on-site department/management.
While agencies may like seeing a degree in translation, they tend to be more appreciative of experience and/or degrees in the field of the subject material(s) (IT, business or medicine, rather than translation/language).
My point with these two generalizations is that the response depends on the individual. Ultimately, inexperienced people simply have: to choose one road, to explore that road while determining their individual needs and, ultimately, to trust that there are "many roads to Rome".
David.
When I emigrated to the USA, I was very keen on arriving with my BA. Over the years, I've noticed that American companies value experience and hands-on expertise above and beyond a college degree, especially in translation or interpreting.
Of course, it depends, as David here notes, on the individual: the individual agency owner, the individual making the translation purchase decisions, the individual from Human Resources interviewing a candidate. But, overall, a university degree in translation or interpretation enjoys less respect here in America than in other parts of the world.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 08:29
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
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| It depends on the innocence of the client | Mar 9, 2016 |
Most clients that are not acquainted with the translation market and need a translator sporadically may think a degree in translation may be a difference. But for those who work with translations and/or who know the market well, it doesn't make a difference, as they know well it indeed does not make the slightest difference.
| | | | Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 07:29
English to Spanish
+ ...
| The slightest difference | Mar 9, 2016 |
Mario Freitas wrote:
Most clients that are not acquainted with the translation market and need a translator sporadically may think a degree in translation may be a difference. But for those who work with translations and/or who know the market well, it doesn't make a difference, as they know well it indeed does not make the slightest difference.
Can we frame the conversation with clear boundaries? What kind of clients are not acquainted with the translation market? How can a translator without a degree determine such difference if there is no basis for comparison?
You're making such a broad statement, lumping all who work with translations and know the market well as people who find a translation/interpretation degree irrelevant (“it does not make a difference”).
One of the problems with making such sweeping statements is that they are untenable (once challenged, no proof of the validity of the underlying argument can be found).
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| I think my degree has helped | Mar 10, 2016 |
I have a Ph.D. in linguistics and wrote my thesis on translation. Clients seem to eat that up.
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