Raquel Kalpakoff is an Environmental Systems major with a concentration in Environmental Policy at UC San Diego. She is spending a fifth year abroad at the University of Bologna in Italy—a long-held dream made even more meaningful by the fact that her mother studied there 35 years ago. Raquel is also a visual artist and the founder of Rocket Artistry, her pet portraiture business that supported her through college. This year marks her first opportunity to focus on personal creative exploration, particularly through courses at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna. A former student-athlete on UCSD’s women’s soccer team, Raquel once thought study abroad was out of reach. Now in Italy, she is diving into art school, improving her Italian, joining a local soccer team, and exploring sustainable agriculture—the field in which she hopes to build her career after researching regenerative agriculture for her senior thesis. Raquel describes her time in Bologna as transformative: a period of artistic growth, self-reflection, and deepening connection to her Italian heritage.