Nicholas Cifuentes-Goodbody

❍ Year of graduation: 2003
❍ Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of the MA in Translation Studies, Translation and Interpreting Institute, Hamad bin Khalifa University


Question: How did you to decide to major in Spanish at Williams?

Nicholas Cifuentes-Goobody: I took intermediate Spanish with Gene (Bell-Villada) in my first year, and he said I was good at Spanish.  I thought I was going to major in English or History, but then I said to myself, “If I major in Spanish, I’ll get to study literature and history, and I’ll have the additional marketable skill of speaking Spanish.”

Question: What are some of your favorite memories of classes, readings, professors, or study abroad experiences?

  1. Gene telling me that I could become a fluent Spanish speaker after all my high school and middle school teachers telling me the opposite.
  2. Writing a paper for Leyla (Rouhi) on honra in her Siglo de Oro class my sophomore year. This was the first piece of criticism I’d written in Spanish, and she loved the paper.
  3. Studying abroad in Mexico for a year.
  4. Writing a thesis that I’m still proud of to this day.