As a fifth year linguistics student in her final semester, Kelly Liu is eager to embark on the next chapter of her life after graduation. In fact, she already has a head-start—Liu has a job offer lined up, and she credits the SFU Co-op program for setting her up for success. 

"Because of my co-op experiences, I was able to find the area within linguistics that I'm really passionate about," says Liu. 

She hopes to establish a career in language learning and technology, starting with the job offer from her former co-op employer, Virtro Entertainment. Liu left a strong impression during her time as a co-op student at the tech start-up, resulting in an offer to remain as the Language Acquisition Specialist on the Argotian project after graduation.

A pioneering game-based system, the Argotian combines virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to create an immersive experience for language learners.  

"My co-op placement at Virtro has propelled me to grow as a person," says Liu. "I was often trusted to complete projects that I had never done before. While this was a daunting task, I was able to explore my capabilities and push them to the limit."

Prior to Virtro, Liu had completed an 8-month co-op placement at Paragon Testing Enterprises where she gained experience working in language assessment. Combined with her background in linguistics, Liu quickly became a valuable asset to the Argotian project. 

Now that she has over a year's worth of work experience under her belt, Liu feels more confident in her own skills and where her career path will take her. 

"I highly encourage other students to take advantage of co-op to explore different fields and how they can apply their linguistics skills to it," says Liu. "Without co-op, I would not have gained the experiences that I had."