Pamela B.

How far are you willing to go to get the education you want? Pamela B. moved some 2,000 miles from Venezuela to Boston, where she enrolled at Bay State College.

Pamela was interested in following in the footsteps of her parents, who are involved in the tourism industry on Margarita Island off the Venezuelan coast. “My older brother goes to Bay State and loves Boston, so I came here to practice my English and look for opportunities to attend college,” she says. “Here in Boston, there are not a lot of colleges with a hospitality management program, but Bay State offered me everything that I needed.”

Even with Hospitality Management as her concentration, Pamela says that the program’s course of study offers a lot of freedom to explore different career directions. “I want to be an event planner, but I don’t want to focus just on that because it’s so specific,” she says. “One of the classes that I’ve liked the most is Management, because it’s related to planning, organizing, leading, and more.”

As an international student, Pamela knows that making the transition to college in another country can be challenging—but that it’s easier at Bay State College. “A lot of my Spanish-speaking friends are afraid of coming here to the U.S. because of the language barrier, but it’s not like that,” she says. “I mean my English is not that good, but with the help of all the people here at Bay State, you can do it.”