Kurt Keena ’13

I majored in Linguistics and Spanish, with a concentration in Translation. I loved both of my majors for a variety of reasons. I loved that they both involve language, but in different ways. Studying Linguistics led me to explore what language really is, what components make it up, how languages are similar, how they differ and how they change over time. Studying Spanish has given me a better understanding of the language, its literature and the culture in which it is spoken.

Both majors complement each other in ways that I never expected: principles in one often have implications for the other. For example, my phonetics class helped me improve my accent in Spanish, while knowing Spanish has helped me understand the Romance language family. I never imagined learning so much not only about Spanish but also about my own native language. I now plan to continue my studies in Montclair State’s graduate program in Speech-Language Pathology.