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The Bachelor of Science in Spanish Translation is a pre-professional degree designed for students to develop the skills needed to become working translators. It also introduces the rudiments of translation theory as it applies to the actual practice of translation. Graduates may enter graduate programs in translation (the professional degree) or go on to work for government, business or industry, for translation agencies or as freelance translators. While meeting requirements designed to ensure competence in Spanish, translation majors take five core courses in translation during the junior and senior years. The 27-credit subject area specialty requirement enables translation students to acquire a level of expertise in a specific field in which they can specialize as translators. Translation majors are strongly encouraged to undertake study in a country where Spanish is spoken.

Translators provide products and services, and work with written documents, as distinguished from interpreters, who work as oral language mediators. Most practitioners pursue one field or the other; it is less common to work in both. Interpreters and translators are employed in a variety of industries: schools, colleges, and universities; healthcare and social assistance, especially hospitals; and other areas of government, such as Federal, State, and local courts. Other employers of interpreters and translators include interpreting and translation agencies, and publishing companies. Many translators will require on-the-job training in addition to Kent’s pre-professional BS in Spanish Translation. Translators work predominantly into the mother tongue.

About 26 percent of interpreters and translators are self-employed, and thus majors should have a strong foundation in entrepreneurship; those who work in-house should be aware that such opportunities are growing steadily fewer due to outsourcing and vendor consolidation. Many translators rely on other sources of income to supplement earnings, such as teaching or language consultancy. The career outlook is best for those who gain a functional ability with translation tools and value-added skills such as revising/editing/proofreading and desktop publishing. Prospects are currently strong in software internationalization and webpage localization (making products, text, or images acceptable to target-country market norms). Literary translation, while not a highly remunerative activity, is nevertheless an important area of the field. To break into the language industry, many inexperienced translators do pro bono humanitarian translation, preferably under supervision.

The freelancer’s best credential at present is to become certified in the language combination through the American Translators Association, or for interpreters, through federal bodies at the national level. Growth projections for the coming decade are strong for the Spanish-English combination due in part to the rise in the Hispanic population in the U.S.

(Sources: Common Sense Advisory; Byte Level Research; Bureau of Labor Statistics)

General Admissions for New Freshman: Students most likely to be admitted and succeed at the Kent Campus are those who have graduated with at least 16 units of the recommended college preparatory curriculum in high school, who have achieved a cumulative high school grade point average of 2.5 or higher (on a 4.0 scale), and whose composite ACT score is 21 or better (980 combined critical reading and math SAT score). For more information on admissions, visit the admissions website for new freshmen.

General Admissions for Transfer Students: Generally, a transfer applicant who has taken 12 or more semester hours with a college cumulative GPA of at least 2.0 on a 4.0 scale may be admitted. An applicant who has taken fewer than 12 semester hours will be evaluated on both collegiate and high school records. For more information on admissions, visit the admissions website for transfer students.

Minimum 121 total credit hours  and  42 upper-division hours for graduation. Minimum 2.000 GPA overall and 2.000 GPA in major required for graduation.

Valencia, Spain (Fundacion ESTEMA, an affiliate of the Universidad Europea de Madrid and American Translators Associated-approved translation school)

Phi Sigma Iota, Salsa

Spanish (M.A.), Secondary Education: Spanish (M.A.T.), Translation: Spanish (M.A., Ph.D.)