“A few months after I finished my degrees in French and Spanish Language and Literature at Boise State, I moved to the UK and started a Masters program in International Human Resource Management at the University of the West of England. In this program I learned HR management skills in an international context. We compared HR practices in leading and emerging economies like the UK, France, Germany, and China, and explored the challenges in managing people from different cultures. The cultural skills I learned from my language degrees at Boise State were a big help to me when I started this program because it gave me an understanding for a culture other than those I had lived in. After graduating from my masters in October 2015, I started looking for a job in HR management at a multinational company in the UK. After a few months of searching I was offered a place on the HR Graduate Fast-Track Scheme at Airbus. This was a very competitive process, and out of 300 applicants, only 3 of us were successful. One of the things that made me stand out the most in my application was my degree in French! Airbus is based in France, and one of my interviewers was from Toulouse. The first thing he saw on my CV were my languages degrees, so he immediately started asking me a few interview questions in French, and also about my knowledge of the country and culture. I’m so excited to be starting this program in September with a training weekend in Toulouse, and I know I would not be there without my studies in French at Boise State!”
— Cindy Stott, French and Spanish Double Major