LO
English / Foreign languages — where it leads
Several directions, never one. Each says what your training reuses, what graduates typically lack, the real entry conditions, and one thing you can test this term. A degree is not assessed here — the assessment sits on the task, so follow any direction through to its occupation page.
Where it can lead#
Localisation inside a product team
task-level analysis →- What transfers
- Language precision plus cross-context judgement, applied to making a product work in a market rather than to a document.
- What graduates typically lack
- Most graduates have never used version control, a terminology system, or worked to an engineering release cycle. That gap is weeks, not years — but it is real and it is what filters CVs.
- Entry reality
- In-house localisation roles are fewer than agency roles but pay as product work rather than per word. Usually needs one demonstrable project; rarely needs a master's.
Pick a product you use in both languages, find three localisation errors, and write one page on why each is wrong and what it costs the company. That document is the portfolio.
User research
- What transfers
- The fast-research and cross-context skills, pointed at people instead of texts. Interviewing someone in their own language and hearing what they did not say is the same skill as reading subtext.
- What graduates typically lack
- Research methodology — how to avoid leading a question, how many interviews is enough, how to separate what someone says from what they do.
- Entry reality
- Entry roles exist but are competitive and often expect one prior research artefact. A portfolio of two real studies beats a degree in it.
Interview five people about one specific decision they made recently. Write a one-page findings note that a stranger could act on. Notice how much of your effort went into not leading them.
International business operations
task-level analysis →- What transfers
- Working across contexts as an operating skill: coordinating people who have different defaults about deadlines, hierarchy and what counts as agreement.
- What graduates typically lack
- Commercial literacy — reading a contract, understanding unit economics, arguing with numbers rather than with judgement.
- Entry reality
- Often the most open door for language graduates, and often undersold as 'just admin' early on. The trajectory depends heavily on whether you pick up the commercial side in year one.
Take one company selling into a market you know, and write two pages on why their local positioning is wrong. Send it to someone who works there.
Regulated or certified translation
task-level analysis →- What transfers
- Language precision, in the one place where it still commands a price: where a named, qualified person has to certify the rendering.
- What graduates typically lack
- The subject matter itself, and the certification. Both take real time and money, and the requirement is jurisdiction-specific.
- Entry reality
- Narrower but more defensible than general translation. Verify the exact local requirement before committing — people routinely assume it is harder or easier than it is.
Find the actual certification requirement in your market and write down the cost, the hours and who accepts it. Then ask one certified translator whether the premium is real.