Francesca Nicolodi

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
I entered Bard College Berlin as a lost kid and left as a confident woman. 
I would probably start by acknowledging the incredible impact my idiosyncratic friends had on my experience at Bard College Berlin. My friends played an immense role in enhancing my intellect and ways of thinking. They all had a thought process often seen as transgressive and controversial. In class, we asked challenging questions and liked to play the devil’s advocate. I was expecting this from academia and was so happy to find it at BCB. University is a place where opinions are vocalized freely and where the objective of all interactions isn’t to think alike but to learn from each other’s perspectives through dialectics. Another significant factor that makes BCB incredible is that it gives you an enormous amount of freedom from the beginning. In my first year, I had to select my courses, set a schedule, and write 2,000-word essays with no imposed directions whatsoever. This was overwhelming yet stimulating. During high school, I didn’t choose my courses, and oftentimes professors in European liberal arts programmes still hold a sense of control to make sure students make ‘logical’ decisions. I was thrilled to have enrolled in a liberal arts university that was true to its name. I loved being able to take advanced classes as a freshman on the sole premise that I could do it. My first semester was a real struggle, to say the least. Coming from a traditional French education, reading Nietzsche in English on my second week of L&T was tough. BCB overloaded me with stimulating readings, which made me advance at an incredible rate, and in my second semester, I was able to keep up with my peers. Going back home for the holidays, I saw a real difference between my high school peers’ mentality towards academia and mine, which made me realize the knowledge and maturity I had gained in a few months. In addition, BCB professors didn’t create a competitive environment, which was amazing for my mental health and academic development. You were free to make everything as well as nothing out of your courses. Overall, Bard College Berlin gave me the space, time, and amazing friends to develop the potential I never knew I had.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
In a nutshell, studying at BCB is meeting a bunch of nerds who turn you into a nerd because they all speak in nerd language. I picked Bard College Berlin for its secluded feel, a university so small it felt like a big family. I enjoyed having fifty students in my year and being able to chat with professors at lunch. I loved being 45 minutes away from the city because my study time was spent in nature and peace. My days were very much about meeting with friends at REWE after class to pick up food and drinks and hang out on the hill in front of W16. We would discuss what we learned, exchange opinions on current events, and explain to each other new concepts and ideas. I long for those days when learning wasn’t only an in-class activity. In fact, I learned more from my friends than in the classroom. Marx, Freud, Da Vinci, and Chrétien de Troyes would transcend campus and follow us in the clubs, exhibitions, and parks of Berlin. It felt as if I was part of a sort of Frankfurt School or Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. 
Truthfully, it was heartbreaking leaving Bard College Berlin. BCB shaped who I am today, and that is mainly thanks to the incredible classes and amazing friends I made there. More than anything, BCB and my Bardian friends taught me to love learning, which I never thought would happen, since I grew up with dyslexia and always struggled in high school. BCB truly surpassed my expectations as a liberal arts university. 

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Even though all my courses were amazing, I really enjoyed the Renaissance Florence core course. I had the privilege of having Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti, who I admire as a professor and definitely played a role in me appreciating this course. The Renaissance is such an intriguing time in art history because of the introduction of mathematics in art. I love the symmetry, bright colors, and Ancient Roman features of those paintings. In addition, I now can pinpoint symbolisms and identify themes, periods, and sometimes painters. I also very much enjoyed the courses that required philosophical mental gymnastics, such as Prof. Dr. Tracy Colony’s classes on existentialism, in which the point wasn’t only to talk about the readings, but to listen to Tracy get you to experience what they meant.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program? 
The biggest impact BCB had on me was my mental transformation. I came to BCB not knowing anything about which field I wanted to settle in and ended up finding a passion and falling in love with dedicating my time and energy to it. 
The people I met at BCB are ambitious and great creators, I had the chance to work on projects with a couple of them. After graduating, I invested six months in opening a bookstore in Spain, an idea that came from a fellow Bardian. Subsequently, I became the managing director for a magazine founded by another Bard alumni Aryana Arian, here in London. In addition, BCB allowed me to find other Roma academics and join the CEU Roma Students Association, thanks to the Open Society Foundations courses from which I took classes in the CEU Romani Studies Program. To this day, I keep in touch with the Roma I met at CEU to invite each other on projects and discuss topics related to Roma rights. On another note, since BCB gave me a humanities background, I wanted to balance it with some IT skills, so I enrolled in a cloud computing course for three months to learn the basics of Python and Bash. I followed the computing programme with a master’s degree in policy, which I knew I wanted to do because the policy courses at BCB were amazing.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am currently enrolled in an MSc in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE). Next year I will be studying policy and governance at Fudan University in Shanghai, as I am undertaking a double degree. I am also involved in a humanities-based magazine mentioned above called perediza, for which I write and execute business strategies. In addition, I am an academic representative at the Social Policy Department and elected National Union of Students delegate by the LSE student body to, in part, draft manifestos for the upcoming UK general elections and London mayor elections. Furthermore, I am also participating in the 2024 European Student Assembly organized by CIVICA to draft policy recommendations for the upcoming European Parliament election. 

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
My advice is to pick who you surround yourself with carefully. They shape you more than you think, and this includes social media! Take any opportunities that come your way. You are young, and no one takes you seriously: build your CV on anything you engage in and do the job well! Third, have an idea of where you are headed for the next five years and get stubbornly fixed on it, this will unconsciously guide you towards your goals. Also, don’t run away from your problems; they will only continue to look bigger and bigger!