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Your interpreting education program will give you the foundation to begin working in this exciting field. The experience you gain after graduation will prepare you for professional credentials.
Many new graduates take advantage of mentorship or internship opportunities to gain experience working with a wide range of people in a wide range of settings with the supervision and support of skilled practitioners.
Learn about the area where you plan to live and work. States have different work eligibility requirements such as state screening or licensure, separate from national certification granted by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID, Inc.).
You can find more information about credentials from
I would say the most important and first step that should be taken is to build a relationship with the Deaf community and a lot of people try to get into interpreting without ever building that relationship and it’s probably the most important foundation of an interpreter’s career is having that relationship with that community.
Joshua Pennise
What I would tell someone who is wanting to get into an interpreting career is there is a lot of need for qualified interpreters. It’s a job that you could pick up and move from state to state if you needed to or city to city because there’s a need all over the United States for interpreters at any given place in time.
It’s a fascinating job that requires daily willingness to learn new vocabulary, accomplished something on a day to day basis. You need to be flexible and be able to work in a situation that you have to educate and take a lot into an assignment and have a tool-belt of information.
Belinda Montgomery