I completed my MA in 2009 and the experience played a formative role in my professional development and career trajectory. I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language & Culture at Radboud University in The Netherlands where I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Discourse, Intercultural and Interlanguage Pragmatics and supervise graduate research. Alongside a solid foundation for immersion in doctoral research, I owe a great deal of my pedagogical philosophy to that which is both espoused and concretely practiced by faculty in the program.
Throughout the experience, I found myself challenged and supported in both coursework and individual research. Paramount were the ways in which the faculty facilitate a passion for language, discourse and critical thinking within various thematic domains. The MA program not only laid the groundwork for further empirical and academic work, it contributed to the acquisition of a keen critical faculty in relation language use in its various forms which has been directly applicable to a variety of endeavours in the private sector as well.
To this day, my empirical orientation is permeated by an interest in linguistic and multimodal phenomena which originally manifested during my MA work. More importantly, it was the passion and encouragement from faculty in the department which was a crucial factor in perusing a career of professional inquiry. The experience was and will continue to be one of the critical component in my professional maturation.