Juana Vallejo

About Me:

Hi! My name is Juana (she/her). I studied abroad in Pavia, Italy with “UF in Pavia: Engineering and Arts in Italy” as a rising sophomore in Summer 2021. I made the decision to study abroad to push myself out of my educational comfort zone, and experience different methods of learning from highly respected Italian physicists, broadening my engineering horizons. This experience helped solidify my choice in major, with the exposure of engineering life and several visits to engineering facilities, but it definitely also helped with discarding my interest of double majoring in physics. As an international student, I feel like my experience with college life is different than most of the local students’; studying abroad helped me finally feel like we were all on the same situation, and forced all of us to bond from the experience of being by ourselves in a foreign country. My favorite memories will always be our weekend trips around the country and being able to create great friendships with Italians even though we didn’t speak the same language.