What is something you’re fascinated with?

I’m really fascinated with languages. Growing up, I was around a melting pot of languages: English, Spanish, just everything really. It just really fascinated me. Learning how language has evolved over time in different areas, and especially how romance languages themselves sort of evolved into their own separate languages in different regions. I’ve just always found them so fascinating. I’ve taken it upon myself to learn about the evolution of these languages and I think it’d be great just to keep learning languages if I could.

What are you planning to do with language?

Right now, I’m studying Russian. After graduation, I’m planning to go into the Peace Corp and serve in either Eastern Europe or the Caucasus region, like Georgia or Azerbaijan. If that doesn’t work, I could always teach English in Russia, expanding languages where I can. After that, I’m planning to come back to the States to get a Master’s, then a Doctorate, and begin teaching Russian at a higher education level in universities and colleges.

What draws you to teaching?

My teachers and professors have had such a big impact on me personally, and I feel like it’s my duty to help that tradition go on. I think language is something extremely important, especially on an international scale, and it needs to be taught. Here in the United States, we have the tendency to really only focus on English. Yeah, we might learn a second language in high school, but we tend to forget it or not pursue it afterwards which is, honestly, quite sad.

What do you think is most important to focus on when you’re teaching?

Connectibility, I’d say. Anyone can say “You need to do X, Y and Z.” It’s very beneficial when a professor or teacher goes the extra length to make sure you understand what you’re doing, understand conjugations, sentence structures. This is something I think the LARS program does extremely well with the smaller class sizes and one-on-one interactions with the professors and tutors.

– Carter Gunnigle

Beneath The Crown was created by Nick Theisen (‘15). It is inspired by Humans of New York (HONY) and aims to bring the community of Gustavus Adolphus College closer together by providing the perspectives of the many different people who live and work at the school.