Hi Pia! We hear you are up to amazing things! First, can you give us a bit of background? What was your major at NU? What types of coops did you do? And, so on?
I graduated in May 2014 from Northeastern with a dual major in Cultural Anthropology and International Affairs and minors in Social Entrepreneurship and Italian Studies. What I enjoyed about the academic path I chose was that for the most part I studied the same topics – globalization, international systems – but I was able to study them through different lenses.
My co-op experience included the Center for Women and Enterprise, a non-profit that seeks to support middle and low-income female business owners in Boston; an experience as an English teaching assistant at vocational high school on the outskirts of Rome, where students study to work the hospitality and service industry; and a last co-op at Root Capital here in Cambridge, a social enterprise that specializes in farmer cooperative financing in Latin America and Africa.
During my sophomore year I became involved in opening a small retail business in Boston, a juice bar in Back Bay, as a member of the core start up team. Being a part of that process was very impactful for me, and gave me practical understanding of the challenges that small business owners face. It can be difficult and time-consuming, but in the end I gained a lot of pride from watching the business grow and succeed.
Can you tell us a bit about your post- graduation experience and what you’re currently doing?
After a brief stint apprenticing as a cheesemonger in the Berkshires after graduation, I decided to apply for programs in food studies. I spent a few months strategizing what the right next step for me would be and I finally decided that it would be in the form of grad school and a new adventure.
In the beginning of March, I started classes at the University for Gastronomic Science nestled in the countryside in Piedmont region of Italy. The University has ties to the Slow Food Movement and seeks to empower its students to empower “good, clean, and fair” food systems. My degree will be in Food Culture and Communications with a concentration in the “Representation, Place, and Identity” of food. It’s a multi-disciplined approach to studying food systems and gastronomy. My classes range from chocolate and olive oil tastings, to ethnobotany and anthropological studies of food and culture.
How did you end up in Italy and how did you get so interested in food!?
If you couldn’t already tell from my name, I grew up in an Italian-American household. True to the stereotypes, food was the cultural medium that my family organized itself around, just as many families do around the world. During my time studying at NU, it became evident to me that food systems were at the core of many of the topics that I was passionate about – culture, global inequalities, agriculture, environment, travel, and hospitality. In some way or another, almost all of my experiences relate to food. It’s everywhere, it’s everything.
My studies within SEI compelled me even more into this world. When confronted with the fact that so much of poverty in the world exists in rural places that are dependent on income from agriculture production, I find it difficult to ignore the importance of the implications our generation faces from having a broken global food system.
As for Italy… it has always been calling me. With its rich culture and history in food and agriculture it’s an ideal place to be learning about global food systems.
Can you tell us a bit about your social interests and if they relate at all? We know you travelled with SEI and took a few classes, can you tell us about that experience and your college experience more generally?
I traveled South Africa and Jamaica with SEI programs and during my second co-op I lived in Rome for six months. Every time I spend time in a new place, everything I thought I had all figured out before becomes more complicated. In practice, nothing is ever as easy as it seems in a book or a case study and you have to get out get a feel for it. All of my experiences abroad while at NU were intensive and have had a lasting effect on the way I approach learning.
If you were given the opportunity to change one thing about the undergraduate student experience what would it be?
If I could change something about my undergraduate experience, it would have been to take advantage further and sooner of the opportunities that NU offers, whether that would have been traveling to more places or getting involved more on campus. The college years go very quickly and its good to have a strategy to get the most out of your time there, when the most resources are available to you.
If you could give undergrads one piece of advice, what would it be?
I would give them the same advice another student gave me the first day I arrived at school at UNISG…just say yes to everything. Say yes to the opportunities that are given to you, you don’t know that they will present themselves again.
Choose the path that is right for you. There is no single path to success in life, and it’s important to remember to “do you.” As you approach graduation, don’t compare yourself to what your classmates are doing and planning, focus on the steps that make sense for you. There is plenty to be done in many different sectors; it is most important to follow what you feel passionate about. I still don’t know exactly what I am “going to do with that” but I feel secure that I will figure it out because thus far I have stayed true to myself and my interests.
Thanks so much for chatting with us!
