During my first year in the program, I was admitted to a PhD program in Germany and offered a lecturer position. After a year of working and researching in Germany, I decided to return to UIUC to pursue my PhD in Curriculum & Instruction.

One of the most important skills I developed is essentially project management. With the research goal in mind and the time/budget/resources constraints: What can reasonably be accomplished, and how can I make sure that it happens? This training helped me define my projects and prioritize tasks more effectively.

I work on a human data labeling/crowd computing platform in Google's Ads and Commerce organization. My team's job is to generate data that is used to train and evaluate automated systems. Primarily I work on: designing, executing, and delivering studies for ads & commerce engineering teams; designing tools and systems for others to use to collect human-labeled data; and developing best...

I'm mainly working on understanding what we do here at the Idaho Division of Career and Technical Education as there's a lot to learn! I'm helping a bit on our annual report that goes to the legislature and also with Perkins reporting which affects our funding at a federal level.

I am currently utilizing patient data to build predictive models for patient outcomes. I work with cross-functional teams to determine best test design and research hypotheses for our research projects. This new role is a perfect intersection of my academic interests and training, and the corporate research experience I gained at Kohl's.

The MATESL and Linguistics/SLATE programs provided me with theoretical and practical knowledge that could easily be applied to the real world. Diverse teaching and researching opportunities I had under the guidance of amazing mentors have been invaluable (e.g., teaching ESL writing, administering the EPT), and these helped me grow professionally.

The University of Illinois has a vast array of resources, including clubs, the extensive library system, webstore, etc. that are useful no matter your position. My time as a MATESL student allowed me to make valuable, cross-campus connections and meet many folks who have become important research partners and friends.

Assistant Professor, Northeastern Illinois University -- Doing a degree at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana gave me plenty of teaching opportunities and also introduced me to the Academic world, which inspired me to further develop my research agenda.

I often reflect on the knowledge I learned and the pedagogical guidance I received during my time in the MATESL program, and I realize that my degree from Illinois made it possible for me to be where I am today. My first teaching job at the Intensive English Institute -- when it was in a house on Nevada St. -- was the start of a very enjoyable, rewarding career.

The MATESL program offers high-quality coursework in language assessment and a variety of opportunities to apply this knowledge in the real world, e.g., as a Teaching Assistant and EPT rater. The mentorship of talented professors such as Dr. Xun Yan has also been invaluable in helping me succeed.