What was your overall experience at the Florence STG?
My overall experience at the STG would be somewhat unique in that I was a member of the first cohort, and we arrived in the middle of the pandemic, August 2020, and we couldn't really leave the house at times.
That first semester, a lot of it was remote, it was very virtual. It was a very strange experience to go to graduate school and to do a master's programme. At the same time, it was really special.
I made some lifelong friends, I met my now wife, and this was an amazing experience to be able to meet people from all over the world, in this one city, at a very strange time.
What's the most valuable lesson you learned during your time at the STG?
I think I learned to stay a little bit more open-minded.
I've always been someone who is very much confident in what I believe, and I think it's one thing to be able to argue your points effectively. It's also another thing to meet somebody from a vastly different background and realise there's a reason they believe in the things they believe in.
It doesn't necessarily mean they're always going to be right, you're always going to be wrong, but it makes you a better arguer and a better debater when you can kind of see where everyone's coming from and the life experiences that led them to believe things differently than you do.
How did your time during the masters prepare you for your programme?
I specialised in international political economy while at the STG, and today I am doing a PhD in that exact same field at the University of Barcelona. So I think in that way, it gave me a lot of the basis, the bedrock I needed for my later academic and professional career in terms of getting familiar with the sort of literature that exists for both the EU but also outside.
For example, I specialise in Latin America and knowing how the region is studied within the region but also abroad is really important to my work.
My time at the STG helped me grow professionally by showing me both the paths I wanted and the path I've been through.
When I arrived at the STG in 2020, I thought I wanted to be a diplomat. I thought I wanted to go the European diplomacy route and become, you know, part of the External Action Service of the EU. And a lot of my friends arrived convinced they were going to do a PhD and ended up not doing the PhD.
I think it was good to learn a little bit more about what I want to do next. For example, I now work in media. I'm a partner at Latin America's largest English language newsletter and kind of learning the skills I needed to succeed both within academia but also outside academia was really helpful. Because it's great to teach a bunch of people how to go do their PhD. It's even better when someone you know can arrive and pick it as a career afterwards in media, policy, academia, etcetera.
What does being part of the STG alumni community mean to you, both personally and professionally?
Professionally, it's interesting to be part of the STG alumni community because we're spread out all over the world. I mean, in some universities, I think you have a very regional or national focus. Here, my friends and my former STG classmates are from all over the world. And that's really kind of interesting and rewarding when we, are in each other cities, when we're looking at similar jobs, when we meet up years after graduation. That's always been interesting.
Personally, it's been very interesting because I believe I'm the first person who has ever married one of his STG classmates. I mean, I live with this STG alum every day. In that way, it's been a very strange and exciting experience, you know, all these years later.
Did you have a favourite class during your time at the STG?
My favorite class would have had to have been comparative regional governance, which was instructed by Professor Carlos Closa, because I'm someone who really does believe in regional integration and, in governance supernationally.
That class really taught me a lot in terms of understanding how different regions approach regional governance and successes and failures in different models. I found that to be instructive and interesting.
How did your professors contribute to your learning experience?
I found the professors here to be really great in that they could be very hands on or very hands off, and they kind of followed the lead of what the student needed.
For example, my thesis supervisor, George Papakonstantinou, is someone who quickly understood that I work best independently alone.
So, for example, we would have check-ins at certain times for my thesis so I could ask some questions or go over a doubt I had.
But he wasn't someone, regularly needing an update every three days the way other people might need that in order to structure their own, thesis. And I found that sort of flexibility between different professors and different students to be really helpful in terms of achieving academic success.