Photo credits: flixbus.com

A few months ago, I found myself totally out of my depth at a human rights summer school in Geneva, with peers much older, smarter, and more experienced than me. If you, like me, have always been an overachiever (and may have potentially peaked at 18 but are trying not to think about that), and have never had the experience of being the absolute dumbest person in a room, then I very much encourage you to follow my lead.

I went to Geneva knowing I would be out of my comfort zone and had accepted that. I was there to learn and meet people and get to know a new city. Two days in and I was super intimidated and counting down the days until I could leave. Three days in and I felt like I had known my peers for months. By day four, I was actually enjoying reading UN documents into the night, even if I still didn’t fully understand them. It was quite the rollercoaster.

So how does this all relate to language? The course content was all law and gender theory, and while some ideas like linguistic relativity came into play occasionally, every topic covered was completely new to me. However, no topic really felt too far removed from my academic experience, which is how I know I chose the right degree.

It’s valuable to see just how much language impacts other domains in the world – from reinforcing gender binaries and isolating thousands of people in the process, to having the power to create treaties just broad enough to apply to hundreds of nation states. In turn, you start to get an idea of the scope of potential careers that awaits us at the end of our degree. That may sound intimidating, but I see it as a blessing in a world where fewer and fewer people are doing the same job for 40 years.

If you get a chance to take part in an opportunity like my summer school, I can’t encourage you enough. You will come away with a different outlook on both the possibilities of the degree and life after, with wonderful friends and a whole new source of inspiration for your dissertation and beyond.