ITI Profile: Ameerah Arjanee Student

During my MA Specialised Translation at the University of Westminster, both my lecturers and the guest speakers on the course have stressed the importance of joining professional organisations and networking with fellow translators. One of my classmates also told me that the ITI offers discounted membership fees to students, along with other great opportunities for us early-career translators, such as mentoring that is partly financially subsidised. She spoke highly of the medical translation mentoring scheme she did, and this made me want to apply for student membership at the ITI as well.

Starting a career in the translation industry in 2024 feels daunting, especially with all the fears going around about the impact on AI on job opportunities and rates. Being connected to a community, even one that is largely virtual, helps allay these fears. I have attended a few online meetups with the ITI, where I received tips from more experienced translators about how to adapt to this new market and make myself resilient in the face of change. They have advised us early-career translators to develop a brand and working on our specialisations, for human translators will always be needed for more specialised texts.

Fashion and makeup are my passions, so I joined the ITI Beauty, Fashion and Luxury Network. Since then, I have attended their free webinars for members and learned so much from them. For instance, I learned about the different types and grades of leather from the fascinating webinar "The taming of the shoe". The coursework I've enjoyed most during my MA has been related to medical translation, especially in the area of cancer research. I would like to join the ITI Medical and Pharmaceutical Network in the next few months to develop that specialisation.

After graduating, I plan to move back to Mauritius. Thanks to the ITI, I know I'll be able to stay connected with the global translation industry, even from my small country. I translate from Spanish, French, and Simplified Chinese into English and Mauritian Creole. While there are plenty of French-English and English-French translators in Mauritius, there are very few who speak Chinese and Spanish. Through the ITI, I can stay in touch with other language professionals who work with these two languages.