Harpur student spotlight: Sara Reiner

Binghamton University student Sara Reiner is finding her way in college, one word at a time.

“I have definitely been able to grow as student,” Reiner said. “You need to be confident in yourself. You are the person who is either going to make your college experience great or drag you down.”

The linguistics and Spanish double-major is scheduled to graduate in spring 2020 as part of a five-year accelerated master’s program. She said her majors give her unique access to another culture.

“I’ve been taking Spanish linguistic classes, mainly because they aren’t literature,” Reiner said. “I’ve learned a lot about different cultures and cultural barriers and cultural awareness, so all those other things that aren’t necessarily defined in literature classes are made apparent.”

The Westchester County, N.Y., native has her father to thank for her venture into learning Spanish. As she was growing up, he instilled in her the importance of being bilingual. Then during her senior year of high school, she took a community service trip to Nicaragua that solidified this understanding.

“While I was there, my Spanish was still a bit broken,” she said. “But I was able to try and communicate with the people who were there. It was honestly one of the most amazing feelings ever being able to create that connection with somebody.”

During her sophomore year at Binghamton University, Reiner — under the guidance of Assistant Professor Sabina Perrino (a linguistic anthropologist) and alongside two graduate students — conducted a study that looked at people’s conceptions of love.

The study consisted of interviewing people from various age brackets and relationship statuses, to see how they defined and conceptualized love. Some provided love stories while others viewed love in terms of their familial relations. The reactions of people when asked these questions — such as voice changes, pitch changes and stuttering — were also accounted for. Reiner was responsible for transcribing the interactions.

“I started wanting to do transcription. Not the type of phonetic transcription you’d see in the dictionary, that’s more my linguistics and Spanish classes,” Reiner said. “We analyzed different speaking patterns, or why some people react to certain things while other people don’t, and so that was really interesting to point out.”

Aside from research and community service, Reiner has also participated in several internship opportunities. Her most recent was with a nonprofit organization in the summer of 2018.

“The majority of the population we worked with were Spanish speakers,” she said. “Everyone there was so warm and encouraging. It’s always nice to feel appreciated and that’s what that environment was. It fostered growth and creativity and good relations between the clients and the employees.”

Reiner is also involved with the Off-Campus College Council Club and works as a student information assistant — a job she’s had for the past three years.

In her downtime, she enjoys skiing, snowboarding, swimming and reading. Her newest love, however, is traveling. Reiner and a childhood friend visited Iceland, Sweden and Norway over the winter break.

“I can’t stop,” Reiner said. “It may not be great for my bank account, but it will enrich my life.”

Whether it was through joining clubs or making new connections, Reiner sees her life so far as a journey and is confident that Binghamton University was the right place to discover herself.

“I think it’s something about the people here,” she said. “It’s very easy here to find where you belong.”