About the Essay Contest: Why Do I Learn Languages?

The aims of this contest are to provide an opportunity to UMass Amherst undergraduate students to share their experiences with multilingualism and language learning with our campus community and to highlight diverse languages spoken and used at our campus. The contest encourages students to reflect on the way in which learning another language contributes to their ways of thinking, their worldview, their career growth, their self-awareness, and their sense of belonging. 

This contest promotes our campus’s mission and our institutional commitment to recognize diversity and foster global competence, and is based on the successful “Year of Languages” initiative at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, one of our peer institutions.

Contact

For questions, please contact contest co-organizers Ela Gezen (egezen [at] umass [dot] edu (egezen[at]umass[dot]edu)) and Teresa Ramsby (tramsby [at] classics [dot] umass [dot] edu (tramsby[at]classics[dot]umass[dot]edu)).