Caweb on tour meets the Middlebury Institute

After Stanford, the CAWEB students have continued their visits in the academic field. During the third day of their trip, CAWEB Students went to Monterey at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies  in order to attend a Localization Project Management course  taught by Mr. Max Troyer, Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator.

The course was a presentation of a vendor manager’s tasks. Mr. Troyer welcomed us and invited us to discuss about some themes with the MIIS students, such as the pros and cons of freelance versus in-house translators for a language service provider, giving all students the opportunity to confront and share opinions and points of view. Mr. Troyer also described the numerous responsibilities of a vendor manager (VM), which can and may be covered by project managers in the case of small companies or if no VM is present in the company. Then, we learned about some methods used by VMs to vet resources before deciding whether to work with them or not: using Web search tools to evaluate websites or search for reviews, asking for references, etc.

Like the CAWEB Master, the MIIS also includes a MA in Translation and Localization Management in his degree program. This meeting was a great opportunity to share our global vision about this global market for language and service technology.

Caweb on Tour meets the Middlebury Institute

The course was really interesting for us to have a view of the vendor management itself but also the teaching at MIIS. Just as we learn with the CAWEB master how to teach ourselves about our ever-changing professional area, Professor Troyer encourages his students to think outside the box to find original solutions to various problems since it is impossible to cover during a single course the complexity and diversity of the projects one can be in charge of during a VM career.

After the course, we had the pleasure to further discuss the matter and get to know the MIIS students over a delicious meal they had carefully prepared for us.

We would like to thank the MIIS for the hospitality we received! Special thanks again to Professor Max Troyer for his warm welcoming to his course and the MIIS students for the generous food and nice meetings. I would also like to thank student Lance Guo for generously sharing his notes. All of you are welcome to Strasbourg, please don’t hesitate to keep in touch or contact us if you ever come to France!