I am a BEI Basic certified American Sign Language interpreter. My interest in ASL was first piqued as a child when I learned that a friend’s parents were Deaf and used ASL to communicate. I was amazed that people could communicate with their hands and wanted to learn how to do the same post haste. After waiting years, since my schools did not offer ASL classes, I enrolled in classes at Austin Community College. What started out as just taking classes to learn this amazing language, and to be able to interact with the Deaf community, turned into an opportunity to be part of this amazing community by serving their needs. I graduated with my AAS in Sign Language Interpreting in 2016.