Maelle Le Rudulier convocates this Fall having completed her Major in Linguistics and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language as she looks toward a career in Speech Pathology.  Each of our students has had a unique journey to their accomplishements. We sat down with Maelle to learn more about hers.

Maelle, tell us more about your attraction to studying Linguistics...

My parents are French immigrants and learning English was a very significant part of my childhood. In highschool, I studied Spanish, took advanced English and French classes, worked as a French and English tutor, and did lots of theatre. These experiences made me love language. After speaking with multiple Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs), I knew that this was the career I wanted to pursue. I began looking into a linguistics degrees and heard lots of good things about SFU's program. After my very first linguistics class of my first semester at SFU, I knew I had made the right choice and never looked back.

When you look ahead, what are some of the special experiences at SFU that will support your future plans?

The TESL program gave me great hands-on experience in the field and I learned a lot about my own immersion into the English language. I look fondly on all the linguistics courses I took throughout the years and truly appreciate how versatile and broad the field of linguistics is.

Dr. Ashley Farris-Trimble did a great job teaching the LING 321 course on-line during COVID and the class made me fall in love with phonology ( I could solve phonology problems all day!)

And I was a member of SHLUB, the SFU Speech and Hearing Club. It aims to prepare SFU undergrads for an SLP or Audiology career.I helped them with their Speech-Language Pathology Graduate School Masterlist for French Master School SLP programs. I loved connecting with everyone in the club about SLP and I wish everyone good luck with their future grad school applications!

Did you work within one of our research labs? 

I did. I joined the Cognitive Language Cognition and Computation (LCC) this Summer and love it so far! I've always been interested in Computational linguistics but unfortunately never had the chance to take any classes on it during my undergrad. Our current projects are very interesting and I hope to grow my skills in the field by learning Python in the near future. I also volunteered as a mentor for the Autism Mentorship Initiative this past year. I got the opportunity to learn from experts in the field including Dr. Grace Iarocci, Dr. Elina Birmingham, Dr. Mitchell Stoddard, and Suzanne Leach. This opportunity had taught me a lot and has given me lots of tools that make me better equipped to work in the SLP field.

I understand that while completing your BA you took an exchange semester in the Netherlands! What was that like?

My time abroad was great! Even though I did not study linguistics there, I learned a lot about other cultures and languages. I ended up traveling after my exchange and volunteered at a hostel in Greece, a farm in Italy, and a theatre in Amsterdam. My previous knowledge in linguistics gave me insight into the many languages and dialects I was exposed to and I even used some of my observations as tools for future linguistics courses.

And now that your undergrad is completed, what are your plans for your career ahead?

I am currently applying to SLP graduate schools -- and I am currently working at a research-based Vancouver language remediation clinic. 

I work one-to-one with students of all ages in a clinic that offers comprehension, reading, spelling, writing, and math remediation programs. The work involved is heavily related to that of an SLP and has been incredibly rewarding.

I am glad to impacting the lives of so many students and learning so much in the process!

The Department of Linguistics congratulates Maelle Le Rudulier on all her accomplishments here at SFU.  We congratulate all our Linguistics majors and minors at this special time on all their accomplishments at SFU.  We wish you all a bright future and encourage you to stay in touch.