{"id":885,"date":"2016-10-28T08:53:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T12:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian\/?page_id=885"},"modified":"2025-06-05T10:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T14:59:12","slug":"jackson-emanuel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/alumni\/jackson-emanuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackson Emanuel (’15) on learning Russian"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jackson Emanuel \u201915, a biochemistry major from Lakewood, Colorado, was awarded a 2015-16 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship for Poland. (Photo: Josh Kuckens\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Of all the enjoyable courses I took at Bates, Russian was my favorite. Although I didn\u2019t begin Russian until senior year, it remains a defining aspect of my time at Bates and one of the things I miss most about college. I started taking Russian without any Russian language background whatsoever. However, thanks to small class sizes and excellent teaching, I managed to read, write, and speak Russian at a basic level after a single year of study. The Russian program at Bates is truly a hidden gem that I wish more students knew about.<\/p>\n

After graduating Bates, I completed a Fulbright grant to teach at an engineering university in Krak\u00f3w, Poland. While I was living abroad, having a background in Russian language paved the way for many additional opportunities. First of all, it enabled me to quickly learn Polish, another Slavic language with a similar grammatical structure. But I found many opportunities to speak Russian itself. Thanks to classes at Bates, I had the opportunity to speak with eyewitnesses of the Maidan Revolution and the ongoing War in Donbass, gaining a nuanced perspective of an important global conflict. Moreover, speaking Russian helped me to befriend native Russian speakers with whom I still keep in contact. Looking beyond its practical applications, the language is a joy to learn and has helped open the door to many life-altering artistic works. Whether it comes to poets like Marina Tsvetaeva or filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, so many artistic giants hail from Russia, after years of exploration I am still only beginning to draw from the deep well that Russian culture has to offer.<\/p>\n

The profit in learning a foreign language cannot be measured in words alone, it gives you the chance to reevaluate your assumptions about communication and humanity. I strongly recommend taking Russian to all Bates students, regardless of their academic background. It\u2019s an experience you won\u2019t easily forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the enjoyable courses I took at Bates, Russian was my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"parent":26,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_prepend":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append":false,"_batesModPostContentOverride_append_before_footer":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-885","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/885\/revisions\/2325"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/german-russian-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}