Survey on Internship and Mentoring in Translation

Internships are an important part of university translation programs in many places, and mentorships of various kinds play a significant role in professional development in a number of professional associations with which I am familiar. Attila Piróth, a Hungarian translator based in France, has conducted and published a number of very thorough, interesting studies on several aspects of the language services professions and is now undertaking the study of intern and mentorship arrangements from various perspectives. I think the results will be very interesting.

If you have been involved in such arrangements, please take the time to contribute your experience to the study. Please note that in its present form, it is difficult to take on a smartphone, so it is probably best to use a full-sized computer or large tablet of some kind.

In a series of surveys I want to explore translation internship and mentoring programs from the viewpoint of different stakeholders: interns/mentees, mentors, organizations running internship programs, educational institutions and translator associations. 

Through a mixture of learning by doing, expert supervision and building a professional network, internships and mentoring programs serve to accelerate the transition of early-career translators into the profession. Yet graduating students are often under pressure from their educational institutions to complete an internship in order to gain credits, but the internship environment is often quite different from their future work environment. 

Therefore this series of surveys aims to identify best practices for internship and mentoring so that students, mentors and other stakeholders can make better choices in planning and implementing their internship and mentoring programs. 

I would thus like to ask your help in completing this survey. There has been no comprehensive research conducted to date on internship/mentoring practices, even though such practices are becoming more common. All stakeholders can benefit from knowing more about current practices in order to avoid negative experiences, to promote positive ones, and to hear what the perspectives are of other stakeholders. 

If you participated in an internship/mentoring program as an intern/ mentee, please complete https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-I.  

If you participated as a mentor, please complete https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-M.  

If you represent an organization that runs internship programs, please complete https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-O. 

If you represent an educational institution, please complete https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-U. 

If you represent a translator association that has promoted internship/mentoring programs, please complete https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR-int-A. 

Please also share information about these surveys among other stakeholders.
The full survey report will be available for free to survey participants and other interested parties. I thank my colleagues, Catherine Howard and Maria Karra, for their help in creating this series of surveys. 

Thank you for taking the time to complete it.

             -- Attila Piróth