Francesca Curtolo

Major: Finance and Economics

Class of: 2017

I came to SNC as a sophomore from Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice to ski for the Eagles Alpine Ski Team. My Italian educational experience was very conservative and traditionally knowledge-based. SNC’s interdisciplinary liberal arts approach offered me a perspective on the world which goes beyond any technical knowledge, to translate what I have learned in the classroom into feasible applications. I benefited from having a bigger framework where each new learning chapter found its own reason why.

“Coming to SNC meant moving for the first time in my life away from my family and my home country, by myself. This has fostered my ability to think in an entrepreneurial way to find creative solutions to the challenges of living abroad.”

I developed personal relationships here with my professors, particularly Professor Stacy Taylor in Business and Instructor Tanya Canino in Journalism, that would never have been possible in Italy. Tanya encouraged me to pursue my passion for journalism at The Eagle’s Eye, although English is not my first language. Winning the Journalism program’s 2016 Golden Quill Award for my December 2015 story “Senior Jason Maynez turns trauma into a winning program for returning vets” proved to me that hard work pays off. I also had the privilege, as one of the Eagle’s Eye reporters, to attend the 2016 Lake Tahoe Summit featuring a speech by then President Obama.

I take great pride in racing for the winning SNC Eagles USCSA Alpine Ski Team for two years. As an individual, I won the 2016 Women’s Individual National Championship in Slalom. Unfortunately, I was not able to participate in the 2017 season because of an injury, which was such a big blow I considered leaving SNC. Luckily, ski coach Branko Zagar was not in his office for me to announce I was leaving and I stayed!

My time at SNC has been both interesting and challenging. I joined the Honor Student program, have been an active member of the SNC Young Professionals, tutored students in Math and Economics, and served as a peer advisor for Business majors. The Business department emphasis on professional preparedness helped me land a great internship in Italy during the summer of 2016 at Dal Bello Boots. I set a personal goal to graduate in three years, although I only transferred 12 elective credits from my Italian college. Through busy schedules each semester I was able to complete my BSBA in Finance and Economics and a minor in Journalism in time.

UPDATE: May 2017

Francesca was chosen as the Valedictorian of the Sierra Nevada College Class of 2017, and has been hired after graduation at Powder Magazine in southern California.

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