I am a med-school graduate, what do I need to become a TRANSLATOR?

I'm a 22 year old fluent English speaker. Finished med school but do not want to pursue a career in medicine... will simply studying Japanese in Japan get me a job as a translator, or will I have to attend translators college for English and Russian as well? (because I plan on specializing in these 3 languages)



Anything else I will need?I am a med-school graduate, what do I need to become a TRANSLATOR?
First you will need to speak, read, and write Japanese (or whatever) at a level where you're functionally bilingual. This is a higher level than fluency. Once you have the skills you can translate in the US professionally (no certification is required on a national level) but finding jobs will difficult. You can also get a degree and use that as experience on your resume. Most translators that work in the US are certified by one or more professional organizations. The ATA is the big one, but there are others. This is where your jobs will come from, for the most part. You can certainly get translation jobs without being certified, but it's required for certain legal documents and many businesses only hire certified translators as a matter of policy. Keep in mind as well that there are so many people in the US who speak both Japanese/Russian and English bilingually or natively due to speaking one at home and one at school/work that you'll be facing a lot of competition. It is not an easy way to make money.