Linguists at Modern Foreign Language Society treated to an address by Old Oakhamian

Oakham School Modern Foreign Language Society recently relaunched for 2022 with its first guest speaker since the Covid-19 pandemic. An audience of 60 Upper School linguists was treated to an address by Charlotte Wilson (Old Oakhamian ’19), currently preparing for her third year at Oriel College Oxford.

Head of Languages, Mr Ed Milner, tells us more:-

“Charlotte gave a fascinating talk, ranging across many matters; notably the skills and employability provided by studying a Language to a high level. Charlotte’s path has taken her from A-level to a degree principally in literary analysis, which has led to exciting employment opportunities in journalism at Private Eye magazine, and her linguistic and communication skills have dovetailed well with her acting ability.

For her, a career in media presenting seems to beckon, helped by the presentational ability that her linguistic training has engendered, but Charlotte stressed that beyond the linguistic capacities which are honed by a language degree are highly prized in a wide range of areas of employment.

Politics, Business and other areas of media also employ well trained linguists and in the post-Brexit world, the ability to deal do business in a foreign language is ever rarer and more desirable. This, plus the ability to think critically, construct arguments at speed and to demonstrate the soft skills developed by a humanities degree will put our linguists in a strong position to face the future.

Charlotte took a range of questions from the eager audience and looks set to go from strength to strength in the coming years. From mid-September she will be in Paris at Theatre School during her year away from Oriel, but we look forward to seeing where her rich and varied path will lead her next. A genuinely inspirational former pupil, we are sure she will encourage many in the audience to a similarly varied and exciting path beyond school. We look forward to seeing more of Charlotte in the years to come, possibly as she begins to grace our screens in the future.”