Every year, graduates from the College of Letters & Science enter the workforce and begin to contribute thousands of dollars to their local, state, and national economies. They bring the skills and knowledge they gained at UW-Milwaukee to their jobs, along with their ambitions and fresh perspectives.
In this article series, we highlight some of the recent Letters & Science alumni who have found fulfilling roles in their chosen fields.
Name: Sarah Lane
Major: French
Graduation Year: 2023
Job: International Student Services Coordinator at UW-Superior
Sarah Lane’s best memories from her time at UWM didn’t actually happen at UWM. They were when she was an exchange student studying for a semester at Université Paris 8 | Vincennes – Saint-Dennis.
“I was taking classes in French with French-speaking students,” she said. “I made friends that I still talk to today. I got to meet people from French-speaking countries all over the world. … I gained a sense of being independent that I think still helps me today. It was probably the coolest experience of my life.”
That experience has also proved helpful in her day-to-day job as the international student services coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
“I can remember my first week of exchange and thinking, ‘Everything is so different. I’m so far away from home. I have no support system,’” she recalled. “I know that feeling of being completely independent from basically everything. So, I’m able to empathize with those international students when they come for the first time.”
For an international traveler, Lane spent most of her childhood nearby. She grew up in Sussex, Wisconsin, and chose UWM because it was affordable and would allow her to live in a bigger city. She entered college as a French major. Since she had been taking French classes since middle school, Lane thought it would be a good academic area to start, and she could switch to something else if a new subject caught her interest.
She never switched.
“I just liked learning the language,” she laughed.
She didn’t have the typical university experience; Lane entered UWM during the COVID-19 pandemic and had to attend many of her classes online. Being an exchange student was one of her first true tastes of college life. After she returned to the U.S., Lane began as a student worker at UWM’s Center for International Education (CIE). If studying abroad gave her the empathy she needed to be good at her current role, her job at CIE gave her the skills and knowledge.
“Through that job, I got to know this whole other side of international education,” she said. “I had no idea that international students are sponsored by the university, and that there’s this whole back end of recruiting students and immigration paperwork. I gained a lot of knowledge.”
Now she uses that knowledge every day at UW-Superior. Much of Lane’s time is spent on paperwork. International students need help navigating visas, securing work authorization, applying for scholarships, understanding the American health care system, and much more besides. Lane also maintains the immigration records of her students to comply with federal law. It’s a lot of work; UW-Superior has one of the largest percentages of international students in its student body out of all the Universities of Wisconsin.
But the most fun part of her job, Lane said, is getting to know the international students and providing them with opportunities to learn about their new home. For instance, each year she takes a group of students to the Bentleyville Tour of Lights in Minnesota. She’s currently in the middle of planning a cultural night for students to celebrate and share their cultures with their classmates. On one memorable occasion, she helped the students host a cooking demo and invited the surrounding community.
“I think it’s good for the (international) students to be able to experience the U.S., but it’s also great for community members and domestic students to learn new things from international students,” Lane said.
She learns new things from them every day, Lane said; she even gets to keep up with her French skills by talking with her student workers from France and Cameroon. But choosing a French major gave her much more than just a command of the language, she added.
“Something I really value is having a global perspective, and that’s definitely something I got from my French courses,” Lane said. “The point is to learn about culture and history.”
That’s knowledge she can take with her anywhere in the world.
By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science