On October 21st, GDUFS witnessed the inauguration ceremony for the Certificate Program in Conference Interpreting. President ZHONG Weihe, Mr. Marco Benedetti-the European Commission's Director General of Interpretation and Mr. Paul Brennan- China correspondent for the European Commission DG of Interpretation, together lighted the crystal ball to celebrate the initiation of the conference interpreting program.
 

Group photo of guests and students in this program
 

Since the year 2013, the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies (SITS) of GDUFS has established the Guangwai Certificate Program of Conference Interpreting with cooperative supports from UNDGACM (UN Department for General Assembly and Conference Management), SCIC (Directorate-General for Interpretation) and CIUTI with its aim to train GDUFS talents to become professional conference interpreters. 
 

Program participants who are elected through aptitude testing will be trained independently over two academic years. They will not be permitted to enter the second year until they pass a highly challenging test given in the middle of the program. During the second academic year, they will be given an internship opportunity within the headquarters of the United Nations. At the end of their program, they must meet the qualifications established by experts from UN, EU and AIIC, in order to get the Completion Certificate of the Guangwai International Conference Interpreting Program-GDUFS will spare no effort to make this program meet the international standards of course design, teaching practice, student selection and examination.
 

President ZHONG Weihe extended his warm welcome to Mr. Marco Benedetti. ZHONG said that it is a great encouragement for GDUFS to promote the certificate program and to develop its training programs for professional talents. He also emphasized that the large demand for high-level professional interpreters in the market continues and GDUFS will do its best to cultivate talents for the society.
 

Mr. Marco Benedetti speaking
 

Mr. Marco Benedetti was invited to address ceremony participants and he sent his sincere congratulations to GDUFS for the successful initiation of the program. In his speech, Mr. Benedetti spoke highly of GDUFS's training mode and the achievements in the area of MTI education. He emphasized that quality should be the core of the program and the overall. He noted that he would continue to monitor and support the future development of this program.
 

CHEN Lihui, student participant in the program, gave a speech at the end of the ceremony. He humorously compared the process of practicing interpreting to encountering a lover. He said that he was lucky to be enrolled in this program and that he would try his best to realize his dream of becoming a top-level conference interpreter.
 

Of note is that, it is actually the second time for Mr. Marco Benedetti to visit GDUFS. Last November he gave a speech on "Interpreting for European Union Institutions: Multilingualism in Action".