Our Students and Alumni

When I first began my time at Seattle University, I knew that I would study Spanish. Prior to my time in the University I had studied Spanish for a cumulative seven years, but I had not yet achieved anything close to fluency. The Spanish major at Seattle University really changed that for me.

I spent four years doing my best to grasp at something that would be close to fluency. The caring and familial nature of the Spanish department allowed me to grow. Of course, this started with basic Spanish courses that covered simple grammar, but eventually I found myself going abroad to expand my skills. I spent six months abroad in Puebla, Mexico. After going abroad I was communicating on a level that I had never dreamed of before. This skill stayed with me through my professional career as well.

Michael Ninen

BA, Spanish and International Studies; minor, Latin American Studies 2020

Learning Chinese has led to deep personal reflection of how my words, down to word ordering and tenses, impacts what I am saying, verbally and internally. When I studied linguistics in my history capstone, being able to relate our studies to Chinese made me ponder how accurate (or not) those theories were.

When I write poetry, my inquiries about the possibilities and limitations for making meaning in English are informed by Chinese sentence structures. While working in the field of AI equity and technology policy, Chinese challenges me to think about how the dominance of English language is impacting technologies that are supposed to be meant for everyone. I’m thankful to Feng Laoshi for being a great professor throughout my time learning Chinese at SU!

Serena Oduro

BA, History and minors in Chinese, Business Administration, Philosophy, and Global African Studies 2020

Learning the basic skill to converse in our daily life was fun, but memorizing characters in Mandarin when it comes to reading and writing was a burden for me at first. However, the more I learn and immerse myself in the world of Mandarin, the more I found those characters are fascinating in their own way. Each character/radical has its own story and distinct association with the Chinese’s life.

As I want to learn more about the Chinese culture, reading and writing was no longer a burden for me, especially when I can learn such beautiful and appealing behind-the-scene story of the characters and how it directly reflects the people’s life.

This experience of taking Mandarin classes at Seattle University has fully aided my personal development as I learn and understand more about Chinese culture.

Nguyen Thao

BA, Marketing and minor in Mandarin Chinese 2020

Studying Mandarin Chinese at Seattle University taught me valuable life skills, and I am so happy I chose to minor in it! 

I am currently a middle school teacher in Hawai’i. I originally took Mandarin because it is my mother’s first language, and I wanted to learn more so that I could speak it with her and my relatives in Taiwan. The professors were very encouraging and my classmates were friendly and helpful.

The courses taught me important skills in Mandarin such as listening, speaking, reading and writing and I learned useful vocabulary I can use in the real world. You do not need to have any background in the language at all in order to minor in it! Studying a language taught me better study skills, organization tactics and time management.

Elena Pendleton

BA, English/Creative Writing and minor in Mandarin Chinese 2019

MA, in Teaching 2020

I graduated from Seattle University with a BA in Spanish and French in 2011. As an undergraduate, I studied abroad in Granada, Spain and became curious about the history of the city.

My senior year, I took two courses with Dr. Earenfight on medieval Spain. The opportunity to combine my language studies with the history of a place that I had grown to love sparked interests that I’ve been chasing ever since.