Q. You recently took on the role of Video Editor with FemGems. Can you tell us a bit about the company?
FemGems Club is a support system for early-stage female founders. It enables communication between FemGems Club mentors and members and it aims to create this result-driven, empowering community of female founders.听
Q. What does your role encompass?
As the Video Editor, I鈥檓 in charge of the FemGems Club YouTube Channel. FemGems started out as a podcast, right before the pandemic hit. As the Covid-19 reality changed our lives, the monthly events they were organizing turned into online events. In order to share these events with each member, and with anyone considering joining the club, they decided to create a YouTube channel. That鈥檚 when I stepped in. Together with Dora, the founder of FemGems Club, we built a structure for the way we edit these online event recordings and we built up the YouTube channel.听
Q. What drew you to the role and to the company in general?
As a feminist, what drove me to the company is, of course, the idea of being part of this community in which women support each other, challenging one another to reach their full potential. Also, social media branding was something I wanted to get familiar with,听and FemGems definitely has a strong understanding of what branding means and how the tools of social media work, which I found very inspiring.听
Q. Did you take any Business classes during your time at AUR, and if so, do they feedback into your听current role?
The only business class I took in AUR was Film Business with Prof. Rambaldi. FemGems is a business-oriented company for sure, but I would say I鈥檓 more on the creative side of things. I really am not a business brain, at all. And they really understand and respect that, I feel. And the conversations that take place in these events are always more than just business.听
Q.听How did you approach the challenge of graduating and finding a job during the pandemic?
Well, that was, and still is, a journey. I feel like the Class of 2020 was the most unfortunate in the sense that, one day on our way to school, our classes got canceled and the next thing we knew, we were adults having to look for jobs in a pandemic. I guess the only bright side to all this听(if we want to call it that)听is that everything is online now and you can look for jobs literally anywhere and meet people you probably wouldn鈥檛 have, were it not for this situation.听
Q.听What鈥檚 the most exciting project that you are working on at the moment?
I would say my main focus right now is the FemGems Club Youtube channel. Since we recently launched it, it requires a lot of work until it鈥檚 on a stable flow. Other than that, I鈥檓 focusing a lot on my writing and photography, but it鈥檚 less of a project at the moment and more of a learning and growing process.听
Q.听Are your colleagues based in Rome too, or are team members located around the world? If the latter, how did you find the experience of joining a team remotely? 听
As I said earlier, probably the only silver lining about any of this is that remote working gives you a chance to connect to people, no matter where they are around the globe. I鈥檓 the only one in Rome. And I get to work for a Berlin-based company and work with all these amazing women who are currently living in Bulgaria, Germany, India, and so on. That鈥檚 the part I find most exciting, for sure.听
Q. What is the most important or听useful skill that your degree taught you that you use in your work now?
Since I鈥檓 working as a Video Editor at FemGems, the most useful skill my degree taught me has definitely been editing. Getting familiar with PremierePro in several classes prepared me for the challenges I might face when I鈥檓 editing the videos.听
Q.听How about studying at AUR in general? What鈥檚 the most valuable (non-academic) skill or experience you gained at AUR?
Looking back now, the most valuable experiences I had in AUR were definitely the one-credit trips I went on with my friends. It was something I didn鈥檛 really think of doing until my last two pre-covid semesters. And now I really cherish the memories I have from those trips, whether it was eating the best cannoli in a monastery in Palermo or just getting lost in the streets of Lisbon with my friends, taking pictures, getting another sangria somewhere, and being late to everything.
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