Gain your competitive edge in the $70 billion language services industry—launch your career through the first and leading Translation and Localization Management master’s program in the U.S.
Our Master of Arts in Translation and Localization Management (TLM) degree prepares you for a career working at the intersection of language, culture, business, AI, and technology. Our graduates work around the world in a range of roles, including as localization program managers and language leads at tech firms like Netflix, Google, and Salesforce, and as project managers at leading translation companies.
| Start Term | Credits | Duration | In-Person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fall | 60 | 4 semesters for regular program 3 semesters for Accelerated Entry 2 semesters for Advanced Entry |
Monterey, California |
Localization is the process of adapting the content related to an idea, service, or product to the language and culture of a specific market or region.
AI is changing the language services industry. Most, if not all job descriptions in the localization industry are being rewritten and expanded to include AI.
From its inception, our program has prepared graduates to leverage new technologies and lead:
What better time to go back to school than now when professionals in the industry are having to learn new skills to keep up with the changes. Our graduates are the leading language experts at the global tech, media, entertainment, gaming, and language service providers. Watch our webinar on Navigating the Growth of AI and Changes to the Language Services Industry.
Your career and academic advising are coordinated, ensuring you align your coursework with your career goals. Our experienced advisors will guide you from course registration to preparing for interviews, negotiating your employment offers, and managing your career.
Our Monterey, California, campus is located in a beautiful, multicultural area that’s home to a high concentration of localization companies. Coupled with our proximity to Silicon Valley, you’ll have extensive opportunities to engage with localization professionals, find internships, and explore full-time employment opportunities.
Our annual language services career fair, hosted at our Monterey, California campus, attracts dozens of employers—like the MediaLocate and Deluxe Media Inc.—all seeking to hire our students for internships and full-time positions.
Our large and influential alumni network is eager to help you take the next step in your career. They are thriving in careers around the world. Many top employers seek out our graduates as their go-to hires for localization management talent.
Explore careers in localization
We have 40+ employers of our recent interns including Salesforce and Welocalize to give you further professional experience before you graduate.
Employers rely on the Institute as their go-to source for finding localization management talent. Our graduates work with some of the most prestigious organizations around the world.
Winnie Heh is a career and academic advisor in translation and interpretation, conference interpretation, and translation and localization management.
Our tech-focused curriculum will prepare you to quickly advance in the fast-growing localization industry. You’ll take hands-on courses in language, management, and technology; develop cross-cultural understanding and communication; and build highly marketable skills. Learn to use the latest translation and localization software, benefit from industry-focused electives, and gain experience through a professional practicum.
Earn this degree over four full-time semesters, three semesters through accelerated entry, or two semesters through the advanced entry.
See curriculum for more details.
Translation courses require native and near-native fluency. They are available through our translation and interpretations master’s degrees in the following languages all paired with English:
If you are interested in German, Russian, or Korean, we strongly encourage you to apply by the preferred application deadline to ensure we have enough students to run those translation courses that year.
Language studies courses require 300-level or higher fluency. They are available in the following languages:
You’ll learn from faculty who combine academic expertise with years of professional experience. They’re active in their respective fields, engaging with industry organizations including, the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA), Nimdzi, LocWorld, the American Translators Association (ATA), TAUS, the Northern California Translators Association (NCTA), the International Federation of Translators (FIT), and Translators Without Borders (TWB).
Together with career advisors, our faculty will be your mentors, ensuring that you receive the academic and professional experience that will help you realize your career goals.
Our flexible curriculum means you can customize your degree:
Check out the program details for your options.
You’ll spend your second year of the program gaining real-world experience through a localization practicum. Your practicum can be a relevant internship, translation, or research project.
More than 95 percent of students who request scholarship consideration receive institutional support. You may receive merit, need-based, partner, and external scholarships and financial aid, which are available to both U.S. and international students.
Your personal enrollment advisor can help you think through financing this important investment in your career development.
We take a holistic approach when considering your application, looking at your academic background, international exposure, professional experience, and career goals. We welcome applicants with or without work experience, and our program has numerous opportunities for you to gain professional experience before you graduate. This approach aligns with the Institute’s core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We do not require GRE or GMAT scores for our master’s programs but competitive scores may strengthen your application and positively influence scholarship decisions.
Learn how to apply and review our Ways to Prepare for Your Program.
One of the things that makes our program very interesting is that we cover so many different topics. And I think that we have probably the most broad curriculum of any localization program in North America, if not the world.
I picked this program because it combines the linguistic aspect with the technical part, and I think that’s very exciting. And this school is one of the only institutions that offer this program. And because I wanna set foot into the localization industry, this was the best choice for me.
Well, my studies here was a mixture of translation, interpretation and localization. And I had a chance to intern at a Stanford hospital. And we got to use advanced tools, computer assisted translation tools, in the field. That’s a very wonderful opportunity that I got.
We have a really close relationship with the localization industry. And we are always interacting with folks in the industry to find out what kind of skills they’re looking for in the people that they hire. And we’re making changes to our courses to respond to their needs.
We need game testers who have the language skills that we need. And then there’s game testing from a localization point of view, where we’re translating our games, and we need to check primarily when text appears on the screen.
Monterey is so close located to the Bay Area, and also the Silicon Valley, which is really great because this gives us an opportunity to attend events in the Silicon Valley. And those are really helpful also to learn about the localization industry. Many, in fact, in not the majority of our students have internships that are ongoing throughout the academic year. There are a few localization agencies right here, in Monterrey, that they work at, and for other agencies, they work remotely. And we’re finding out that agencies are opening up offices here in Monterrey, partially to get access to our students. Here, you will learn the most advanced expertise in this profession because every professor are the most selective ones in the world. And they are also practicing profession as well. They never stop practicing.
It’s so easy to get help from the professors. Even on the weekend when I had some issues with coding, my professor emailed me right back which was really great.
The goal for our graduates is to get them their dream job in the localization industry. And to do that, we’re giving them the skills that employers are looking for
Everything I’ve learned here so far is so relevant. Just meeting people from the localization industry outside of MIIS made me realize that all the skills are really important to know.
If you’ve been looking for a way to use your language skills, and you’d like to learn some business and technology skills as well, then translation and localization management is the perfect program for you.
| by Claudia Siegenthaler TLM ’23
Alum Claudia Siegenthaler says there’s no doubt that AI is shifting the role of humans in translation and localization management, but she’s seeing a lot of upside as a project manager at a localization company.
| by Jason Warburg
Translation and localization management students Xiaofei Shen and Minting Lu gained valuable professional experience localizing an online game in development as a class project.
| by Marissa Gonzalez
Almost 50 Middlebury Institute students are practicum this semester spending their time and gaining invaluable skills in locations all over the globe from Alaska to Kenya.
Our graduates work for private corporations, governments, and nonprofit organizations around the world as employees or freelance consultants.
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