Petra Kroupova ’17

I was born in Prague, Czech Republic where I lived until I moved to Dijon, France to finish high school. My father found out about AUP when I was 14 and we agreed that AUP would be a great way for me to perfect my French, while also getting a great education in English. By the time I was applying to universities, there was no doubt in my mind that this was the school I needed.  

I didn’t really know what I wanted to study when I came to AUP. I had been leaning towards History, Law, and Society because I’d always been fascinated by law but I soon decided that a liberal arts school was the ideal place in which to study subjects that I might not have otherwise pursued. I chose to major in Management because it offered so many elective options, and to minor in International Law and Economics because both hold such deep interest for me. I’ve always appreciated the balance AUP strikes between academic rigor and making sure students are free to explore numerous fields, which for me have included public speaking, Spanish, web design, and media.

My favorite classroom moment actually happened this morning! A speaker came to my Entrepreneurship class to discuss a global competition that our class would be entering. She explained the details and then shared stories about past participants who had been able to use the competition as leverage to gain immediate employment and start their own companies with billion-dollar corporations as clients. In that moment, I saw how being at AUP could actually change my life, and that there’s an opportunity to be found in everything we do here.  

For me, that sense of possibility extends to what I do outside of the classroom as well. I’m now the Treasurer of Student Government, I was Co-Chair of the Activities and Clubs Committee, and I volunteered at different school events, including the Sexual Aggression Awareness and Charity Weeks. I also had a part-time business development internship at Energy Power Lab, a human resource startup, along with a regular, part-time internship in Prague every summer.  

I really enjoy how the faculty and staff’s personal approaches and the international views of my peers and professors come together to form a truly unique academic atmosphere. Many students think that they’re independent when they go off to university because they’re no longer living with their parents but at AUP, you really do have to grow up. I lived in a boarding school for two years, where everything was taken care of but here, I have to manage my finances, cook, and clean, which has made me more aware of what I do and how I do it.  

Thanks to the academic and internship opportunities I’ve enjoyed here, I’ve realized that what I really want to do (for now!) is work in mergers and acquisitions. I’ve also been inspired by my AUP friends to expand my language skills, which is why I’m working hard to master Spanish as my fourth language. Living in Paris has made me feel prepared for whatever comes my way, professionally and linguistically: I can now easily communicate in numerous languages, simultaneously, without a second thought!