Rose Cooper-Finger ’14 is quadrilingual: she speaks fluent English, French, German, and Spanish. And she’s used those skills extensively while at Scripps College – working toward a linguistics and cognitive science and foreign languages dual major, conducting summer research in the Basque region, and participating in off-campus study experiences in France and Germany.
Now, thanks to a Fulbright fellowship, Cooper-Finger will return to the German state of Saxony as an English teaching assistant. “I love teaching language,” she says. “Traveling, working, and just living in Germany is truly a dream come true.”
Cooper-Finger first caught the travel bug while enrolled in German studies professor Marc Katz’s intermediate German class. His stories of Germany captivated her and motivated her to apply for the Merle A. and Edith G. Potter Award, which would fund her travels to Freiburg, Germany (where she was based) to Bregenz, Austria and beyond.
“My time in Freiburg made me fall in love with the German country and culture,” she says. “The vibrant art culture, particularly the community opera scene, made a deep impression upon me and was a major factor that motivated me to apply for the Fulbright.”
Cooper-Finger’s travels inspired the Seattle native to learn to acclimate to new cultures, languages, and ways of life. Her time in Basque country inspired her thesis, which explores language policy in France and Spain and how it affects the revitalization of the Basque language. “It’s been an incredibly journey since I started conducting research in July 2013, and I’m very excited to learn Basque someday,” she says.
Ultimately, the graduating senior plans on enrolling in graduate school for linguistics, either in the United States or in Germany. “I’d like to extend my English teaching assistantship beyond the ten month grant period,” says Cooper-Finger. “I’ve considered applying for the United States Teaching Assistantship in Austria as well.”