FRIT alumna Lauren Hamlett (BA, 2019) tells everybody to learn a second language. After loving Italian in high school, she was planning to minor in the language at Ohio State, but her advisor talked her into majoring. “It ended up being the best decision I ever made in college,” says Hamlett.
Hamlett graduated in 2019 with majors in Italian and International Studies (Security and Intelligence concentration) and minors in Social Psychology and Law Prep. Studying Italian gave her many incredible opportunities: she tried her hand at teaching, studied abroad, and made lots of great friends.
But the one thing she comes back to the most is how much studying a second language opened her world. “The more I learned the language, the more I understood a different culture and their mindset. That was fascinating and it changed my view of the world in a lot of ways,” she says.
As part of her major, Hamlett participated in two teaching experiences. During her sophomore year she signed up for a one credit hour service class where she and six other majors taught Italian at Wellington High School. Every Wednesday morning before school she would lead lessons on Italian language and culture. The high school students were preparing for a trip to Italy, and teaching the material got Hamlett excited about her own upcoming study abroad program.
In her final semester, Hamlett taught at Indianola Middle School as part of the Intercultural Competence for Global Citizenship After School Program. This was a more involved experience as Hamlett prepared all the lesson plans and activities. She taught three fourth-grade students. “I love kids, but I have so much more respect for teachers now,” says Hamlett, “So much goes into planning a lesson, especially when teaching little kids.”
Studying abroad was another incredible experience for Hamlett. She spent two months in Siena, Italy as part of the Siena Italian Studies program. She became very confident with the language and the city. She remembers walking home from school one day and realizing that everything feels very natural. “I no longer felt like a tourist,” she says.
Hamlett also participated in volunteer work in Siena. She signed up as a teaching assistant for one of the professors at her school, who taught Italian to refugees living in Siena. She also joined Language Partners, where a group of American and Italian students would meet and alternate speaking in English and Italian. She and the other study abroad students became close friends with the local students she met though this program, and they spent a lot of time at a café next to the school. “The woman who ran the café became like a second host mom because she knew us so well,” says Hamlett.
Hamlett met a lot of great friends both during her study abroad program and during her Italian classes at Ohio State. She says the Italian majors are a very close-knit community. They often organized group meetings to work on homework and some of them went to Siena together, which was a great comfort at the beginning. She also loved her Italian classes and professors and Ohio State. “They were my most enjoyable and interactive classes, and they pushed me the most,” she says.
In the fall, Hamlett will begin the law program at Ohio State. She has been considering law ever since high school, recently worked as a legal assistant at a law firm and decided to finally go for it. Her focus and motivation are immigration and civil rights law. Hamlett’s experience working with refugees played a big role in this decision. She says that they often talked about how scared they were. “This was in Italy, but it’s the same here in the U.S. I want to be the person who can help inform them and help them get the life they came here to have,” says Hamlett.
Even though she is now focused on law, Hamlett is not losing sight of her foreign language education. She continues to practice Italian and stay in tune with Italian culture wherever she can. One of the reasons she chose Ohio State for law school is that the school offers a program to learn a foreign language. Hamlett plans to take this opportunity to learn Spanish.
“I tell everybody to learn a second language. We all get stuck in our bubble. At some point while studying, there is a switch in your head when you know that the world is so much bigger, and you just want to go see it.”
