With the help of the Rosenberg Grant for Provost Scholars, Marlon was able to spend his junior year studying in Paris at the prestigious Sorbonne University. He immersed himself directly in a system known for its harsh grading practices, but Marlon’s bet paid off. He received the highest grades of any student in the CUNY NY-Paris Exchange Program’s 28-year history according to Maxime Fisher, the program’s director. This personally and academically rich experience might now be leading to further professional opportunities. Marlon has passed the written examinations to become a NY State Unified Court System interpreter in both Portuguese and French. He is set to complete the oral examinations at the beginning of February.
Although not being a native speaker of English (he is a Brazilian national), Marlon has found in writing an emotional and creative outlet. He had essays published by iMagazine in the fall of both 2009 and 2011. He was named the winner of the Berlfein Prize for the Best Undergraduate Writing in the spring of 2011. Most recently, Marlon had two of his poems published by Encounters, Baruch’s literary journal. In his last semester at Baruch, Marlon is working in and interdisciplinary Honors Thesis on Brazil’s contested collective memory politics as articulated through the country’s literary and film productions. Professors Nascimento-Kettner and Ramos-Zayas invited Marlon to present his thesis research to the students of a Feit Seminar they are teaching entitled Global Brazil.
