While volunteering at an elementary school, Mareike Larsen couldn’t fully understand the children at the school.

They were exclusively communicating through sign language.

“There were 5- and 6-year-olds whose hands were flying, and obviously they were talking a mile a minute, and I just couldn’t understand them,” Larsen said. “I wanted in. I wanted to know what they were saying, and I wanted to say what they were saying, too.”

Larsen, who is now fluent in American Sign Language, works as a freelance interpreter for two agencies, both of which utilize her services almost exclusively at Syracuse University.

To become fluent in sign language, Mareike attended the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology after she did her undergrad studies. The school accepted only 30 hearing students and accepted 1,100 deaf students at the time. The professors were deaf and the instructions were given in sign language. Only some of the interpreting professors were hearing.

“It was in essence moving to a foreign country where they spoke in an entirely different language,” Larsen said.

Larsen learned sign language through a textbook for two semesters in her undergraduate studies before attending NTID, so she didn’t have practice communicating with others. Because she was adept in signing, people also thought she was skilled in understanding the language.

“I became terrified to communicate with anyone because they would make assumptions on my level of output and I was embarrassed,” Larsen said.

After her studies at NTID, Larsen said she was still nervous about communicating and being an interpreter, so she decided to challenge herself by working as an interpreter for three deaf managers and eight hearing managers who didn’t understand sign language.

Larsen said she is most passionate about working with students in post-secondary education, which she has been doing since 2000. Larsen added she becomes invested in the students’ experience and the quality of their experience.

Said Larsen: “It’s nice that I develop these strong bonds and know the person very well, but it’s heart wrenching because over and over again the student graduates and goes off to their lives, which is what should be, but then I miss them terribly.”

Published on March 4, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact: maquigle@syr.edu