Alumni Voices

On Building Multilingual Professional Lives

“Participating in SEASSI allowed me to focus on improving my Thai language skills as directly relating to my career goals. It was a priceless experience, and I recommend it to anyone who is seeking to better their language skills, especially in a short period of time.“

– Alexis Ostrowski, Thai ’20, Professor, Bowling Green State University

“Using WISLI as a launching pad, I quickly achieved advanced proficiency in Arabic. Now, my career is built entirely around my language skills. I work as a language coach, Arabic instructor, and freelance translator. I have also served as a volunteer and project coordinator for humanitarian projects in Lebanon that work alongside Palestinian NGOs and grassroots organizations.”

– Daniel Wieber, Turkish ’13, Freelance Linguist

“WISLI was transformative in two different decades of my life. Studying Hindi first prepared me linguistically for field research and for living and working with people living in or tracing their roots to India. Next, studying Malagasy prepared me for pursuing new professional connections and creating opportunities in Madagascar. I strongly recommend studying at WISLI.”

– Basil Considine, Hindi ’11, Malagasy ’22, Doctoral Writing Specialist, Abilene Christian University

“WISLI gave me the perfect opportunity to quickly develop competency in a language that I hadn’t initially planned on studying. Happily enough, this ended up opening my personal range of interests as well as unexpectedly coming in handy in a later job.“

– Austen Dowell, Turkish ’20, Assistant Program Officer, National Endowment for Democracy

“I loved the eight weeks I spent studying Indonesian with WISLI. I’m interested in joining the Peace Corps after I graduate, and WISLI was a great first step toward that goal. Thanks to the excellent teachers and challenging academic experience that WISLI provides, I feel prepared to pursue my career goals outside the program. I now have so many more resources to draw upon as I continue my language-learning journey.”

– Chris Martin, Indonesian ’23, Undergraduate Student

“My summer studying Arabic at WISLI gave me a great foundation that I was able to use and build on during my time living in Lebanon and working at the American University of Beirut. Entering a language immersion program as a beginner was an unforgettable learning and life experience. I loved my summer in Madison and I am still in touch with some of the classmates and instructors from the program over ten years later!”

– Jennifer Nish, Arabic ‘12, Assistant Professor of Technical Communication and Rhetoric, Texas Tech University

“Studying Hindi at the intermediate level with SASLI made a huge difference in my language skills. After SASLI, I moved to south India to lead a research project in which I work with migrant laborers–many of whom come from the north and speak Hindi. Both professionally and personally, the ability to use Hindi has benefited me immensely during my time in India.“

–  Anna Correa, Hindi ’22, Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellow with St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore

“With the language skills I learned in SEASSI, I was able to contribute my skills to support organizing work at the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) in Boston and navigate fluidly in recent travels to Vietnam. I am grateful to SEASSI for helping build my confidence in Vietnamese and helping me reconnect with my mother tongue.”

– Austin Nguyen, Vietnamese ’20, Senior Data Scientist

On Proficiency Gains and Intercultural Learning

“Studying with WISLI helped me to finally break through the barrier I previously had with becoming conversational in Arabic.”

– Mikaela Peters, Arabic ’21, Student at LUT University

“WISLI gave me an opportunity to immerse myself in Thai for 8 weeks, which was a huge boost in my learning. I don’t know where else I would have an opportunity like that outside of Thailand.“

– Nay Petrucelli, Thai ’23, Director of Hiring and EEO Compliance, Indiana University

“WISLI provided the crash course I needed to improve my language ability as quickly as possible. It was also a great environment where I could immerse myself in the language without worrying about any of life’s other complications for a summer. I highly recommend it to anyone. It has helped prepare me for attending Grad school in Thailand.”

– Tyler Beebout, Turkish ’08, Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State

“Participating in Intermediate Sanskrit at SASLI prepared me to begin the advanced level in the first semester of my master’s program. As I plan to begin studying a second language, getting ahead at SASLI was a crucial step in my graduate school journey.”

– Anna Guterman, Sanskrit ‘22, Master of Theological Studies Candidate

“My memories of studying at WISLI are fond, and my proficiency soared through the roof. The language training made me a more versatile graduate student and deepened my appreciation for the Middle East and the world at large.”

– Asad Dandia, Persian ’18

“SASLI kick-started my Bengali and Eastern South Asian language learning journey. I progressed quickly in fluency at the very beginning of my postgraduate degree so that I could get started with research right away. As a South Asian language-obsessed person who learned Hindi and Sanskrit before coming to SASLI, I enjoyed being surrounded by other teachers and students of so many other South Asian languages at once.”

– Christopher Diamond, Bengali ’12, Lecturer in Hindi, The Australian National University (ANU)

“My time studying at WISLI was very valuable in setting up my graduate career trajectory for intensive reading and writing in Persian. I studied intermediate Persian in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the program’s flexibility helped tremendously.”

– Keanu Mehdi Heydari, Persian ’20, Doctoral Candidate in History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

“WISLI provided an unparalleled language learning opportunity. At the end of the summer, I was certified as a low intermediate speaker of Turkish. This intensive language study was both challenging and rewarding. WISLI is a great resource to learn a language that isn’t typically offered by universities. It was a goal of mine to learn Turkish as a student of German culture and language because Turks make up the second-largest ethnic group in Germany. WISLI helped me finally achieve that goal.”

– Jacob Bartelt, Turkish ’21, Quality Manager at Epic

“This was one of the best language programs I’ve ever participated in. My professor was focused on our language development and went above and beyond to build a curriculum to help us be successful in our goals. I built the foundation necessary for me to complete a master’s thesis requiring translation of hundreds of Turkish newspaper articles, something I could never have done successfully in such a short time without this program.”

– Rachel, Turkish ’14, UX Research Program Manager, Verily

On Belonging and Global Connections

“Studying at SIPI allowed me to conduct research in Brazil, enrich my capoeira and forró music practice, and make numerous Portuguese-speaking friends in Brazil and the United States. It was an invaluable experience, and I appreciate it every day!”

– Brendan Loula, Portuguese ’13, CC teacher, Madison Metropolitan School District

“My wonderful teachers simultaneously taught and empowered me to pursue formal and informal Vietnamese as means to re-connect with my own heritage and build upon the beautiful relationship between Southeast Asian academics and the Southeast Asian communities.”

– Derrick Nguyễn Thiện, Vietnamese ’22, Lab Manager & Research Coordinator, University of Missouri – Columbia

“Not only were my experiences with SASLI and SEASSI intellectually and pedagogically challenging as I spent three different summers engaged in the intensive study of Sinhala and Thai, the connections I made with the community of language learners from around the world, my instructors, peers, and other folks drawn together by a shared interest in area studies have continued to be one of the most enriching and sustaining parts of my graduate and early professional career experience.“

– Tyler A. Lehrer, Sinhala ’14, ’15, Thai ’17, Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Wesleyan University

“I was able to make some really good friends during my time studying Hindi who I still keep in touch with.”

– Rohan Patel, Hindi ’18, Advisory Analyst at Deloitte

“I had my first introduction to spoken Tibetan language classes at SASLI, and it was a wonderful experience! The class was small, well-organized, and totally immersive. I met great friends that summer, and we all went on to really flourish thanks to that intensive and supportive language training.”

– Sarah Richardson, Tibetan ’07, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto Mississauga

“SEASSI provided me with a fantastic and fun way to complete an advanced Vietnamese course with wonderful teachers and an awesome student community.“

– Maggie Bodemer, Vietnamese ’06, Lecturer, History Dept, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA

“The Arabic language has allowed me to connect with a vibrant community of translators, activists, humanitarians, and scholars around the world. It all started with WISLI and I am forever grateful for their dedicated language instructors and their robust language program.”

– Daniel Wieber, Turkish ’13, Freelance Linguist

“Studying Vietnamese during with summer with SEASSI was a great way to be part of the community of students passionate about taking on the challenge to learn another language and become better global citizens. Though people came from all walks of life with a variety of career goals, it was fascinating to be united in my class with others who shared the joy of learning Vietnamese and also to learn from students studying the many other languages offered.“

– Jon Formella, Vietnamese ’20, Young Professional Program Participant at the East-West Center