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It was a somewhat rocky road that led Finn to AUR... A debilitating injury (a broken foot) made him determined to make up for the time that he had spent immobile in recovery with "the craziest adventure possible". With his family members having had their own experiences traveling and studying abroad, it seemed like the natural path for Finn to take, and he signed up for an exchange program based in the hilltop town of Orvieto, which lies to the north of Rome in the neighboring region of Umbria.

This adventure was cut short by another, much more wide-reaching misfortune: Covid-19. Halfway through the exchange, Finn had to return to the US - but he did so with a fierce determination to make it back to Italy as soon as possible, so much so that he went all-out in order to graduate a year early, leaving him free to resume his Italian adventure. So, while we wouldn't wish a broken foot on anyone and we are desperate to see this pandemic come to an end, we are happy to be able to draw some silver linings from the clouds. In this case, the silver lining is that this combination of events led Finn to choose AUR as the place to continue his Italian adventure. He made a very good point that all of us who are based in Rome should take note of: when asked about the impact of Covid-19 on his university experience, Finn said that while he is sorry that the programmed field trips to enticing European destinations have been suspended, the fact that he is in Rome more than makes up for the disappointment.

Finn spoke to us about his interest in photography that took hold during his exchange in Orvieto, and how this hobby snowballed into something bigger, something that he wanted to pursue at university - hence the choice of Film & Digital Media at AUR. Just as it was a desire for adventure that brought him to Italy in the first place, adventure is what Finn names as his biggest inspiration in his creative projects:

It's hard for me to draw an idea when I'm not in the moment, so if I'm on an adventure and I'm in the moment and there's something super cool in front of me, I'll have really good inspiration for how to take a picture of that. If I'm just sitting at home, I'll always get that creative block.

His dedication to his craft is impressive: he recounts how, having climbed to the top of the Vatican cupola on a day trip during his exchange program, he later decided that he wasn't totally satisfied with the photo he took from the viewpoint because the angle wasn't quite right - and so, when he returned to Rome as an AUR student, he went back to the Vatican, climbed to the top once more, and got the perfect shot.

Finn is only at the beginning of his AUR experience, having joined us in the fall of 2020, and we are excited to see where the opportunities of Rome will take him. He describes his time in Orvieto as having a profound impact upon him: he is a keen mountain-biker (the cause of his injury, in fact) and, up until then, he had been anticipting a future in which the sport played a big part. But his time in Italy opened up so many new possibilities that he deicded to put this passion on the back-burner and explore the new path that living and studying overseas presented.