Alumni Spotlight: Charlotte Olney ’20

Introducing Charlotte Olney! Charlotte graduated from Denison in 2020 as a double-major in Spanish and Educational Studies. She has combined her two majors in her current role as an English Teacher with the Tales of London in Madrid, Spain. While teaching English, she is working towards her Masters in International Education & Bilingualism at the University Camilo José Cela in Madrid as well as working on obtaining a certificate to teach in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools.

Charlotte’s passion for teaching Spanish developed during her senior year at Denison, when she worked in the Spanish classroom at Granville Elementary School. She did this as an independent study as part of her Educational Studies major. She expected to pursue this after her year teaching English in Spain; however, she ended up extending her stay in Madrid because she “fell in love with the city and the school where she worked”. Charlotte never thought she would end up wanting to stay in Spain permanently, but as of now, she loves living and teaching there. Charlotte currently teaches English to children ages 2-7 years old at a language school in Madrid. The past two years Charlotte spent as an English Language Assistant at a public school in Madrid. She is now applying to English-teaching jobs at International and private schools in Spain.

Charlotte believes that each of her service learning opportunities through the Educational Studies major at Denison has helped her get to where she is today. Each CSL experience she had was different from the other, but they helped her decide that teaching was something she really wanted to do. Just two and a half years into her teaching career, she has had the opportunity to work with different age groups and taught at schools that are vastly different from one another. Charlotte believes that “all of the service-learning experiences that I had while at Denison helped me to see how valuable those differences are. It also helped me understand the importance of flexibility, as well as how important it is to try to get as much out of a work-related experience as possible”.

Based on Charlotte’s experiences teaching and living in Spain, her one piece of advice for college students is “to always have an open mind about your future career. Even though you may have a plan in your mind about what you want to do, it’s okay for that plan to change! Regardless of what you end up doing, any work experiences that you acquire will help you solidify what it is you want to do”.

If you want to learn more about Charlotte’s experiences teaching English in Spain, you can connect with her via LinkedIn !

By Grace Buller
Grace Buller Peer Career Coach and Peer Fellow: Nonprofit, Education and Government Career Community