My name is Yulia Davyda and I am a junior studying finance and international business at the University of Pittsburgh. Though the majority of my degree is finance and studying numbers, I was not always sure about this path. The way I actually chose business was kind of funny. During high school, the first job I had was at a fancy retirement home as a server. A lot of the residents there grew to love us and were super interested in our lives. They would often ask me what I was studying. I would be nervous and often scared to tell them that I actually had no idea what I wanted to study. I decided that I had to come up with one answer that they would be happy about and just stick with telling them it. The answer I came up with was telling them that I planned to study finance. The crazy thing is, as I got to think about it more, I realized that I might actually want to study finance. I decided to join a business club at my high school to try and explore this option and to my surprise, I actually really liked it. Though I wasn’t too sure about finance, there was one thing I was ALWAYS sure about. This was to travel and study abroad. My first language is Ukrainian, however, I was born in America. My parents came here from Ukraine in the 90s in order to give their future children a better life than what was then the Soviet Union. Since they weren’t originally from here, I thought that leaving the place I was from was something I had to experience as well. I think Pitt gave me a very good opportunity to pursue this dream of mine. Though my first couple of weeks have resulted in some homesickness, I plan on growing a lot while I am here. For reference, I am originally from Pittsburgh so in a sense, I never really got to leave home until now. It’s scary but exciting. I love being surrounded by a whole new culture and being able to immerse myself as much as I can here. My neighborhood is beautiful and lively and I often get greeted with live opera singers on the street. None of my roommates go to the University of Pittsburgh so I totally went into my living situations blind. I do think this is very good because being pushed out of my comfort zone is the best way to really achieve any growth.