Alfio

How did you know AUP was the place for you? 

After spending nine years in Beijing at international schools, I wanted to continue living in environments that had a lot of linguistic and cultural diversity. At the same time, I wanted an American college education. AUP had the best of both worlds. In addition, it had small class sizes that facilitated my hands-on learning style. Living in Paris for the past four years has really made me fall in love with the city and with France, and now I plan on trying to become a French citizen once I graduate! 

How did you decide on a self-designed major? 

My time at AUP has really shaped how I view my future. Through my studies, I have realized that one of the world's oldest and most deeply rooted issues is cultural miscommunication. Whether I was taking classes in philosophy, anthropology, politics or science, culture and language were always at the heart of the course material and had an undeniable role to play when discussing possible solutions. When I first started, I was declared as an international and comparative politics major, but through my relationships with professors and academic advisors I was able to find my real passion and build my own major around it: a self-designed major in socio-cultural translation with minors in French and linguistics  It put me on a completely different life path – one I never would have thought about had I not come to AUP!  

Do you have a favorite extracurricular moment? 

My stand-out moment at AUP was when I got the opportunity to host AUP's first-ever Comedy Roast during AUP Gives Back week in 2019. It was an amazing event where the whole community came together to laugh and reminisce on our favorite funny stories from our time at the University. The event raised almost €200 in donations for breast cancer research, helping bring to life the adage that laughter truly is the best medicine.