Interview with
Nathalie Notarianni WM: Nathalie, tell us a bit about yourself. NN: As a dependent of a Department of Defense employee, I had the unique opportunity of growing up overseas in amazing, culturally-rich countries. I consider the Marshall Islands my home, which is where I was born and spent my childhood before my family and I began travelling the world. After leaving the islands, we moved to the Netherlands for a couple of years, followed by Belgium and Italy. I finished my last two years of high school in Romania at AISB. The move from Italy to Romania was
the most difficult for me because we expected that I would be able to finish high school in Rome, a place I had grown to love so much. However, Romania, and AISB in particular, welcomed my family and me with open arms, and I was lucky to spend my last two years in Europe there before moving to the United States to attend Clark University in Massachusetts. I graduated from Clark in May 2016 and found a job later that summer as a paralegal at an immigration law firm just outside of Boston, which is where I work now.
22 WORLD ALUMNI MAGAZINE
AISB Alumna, Class of 2013
WM: What advantages as well as challenges did you find growing up as a third culture kid? NN: Being mixed with Marshallese, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian genes while living in various countries certainly made it difficult to identify with one place or culture, but it did so in the best way possible. As every third culture kid knows, the easy conversation starter of “where are you from?” is not nearly as simple to answer. For this reason, AISB was a great fit for me, because oftentimes my peers shared similar experiences, and we shared a
mutual understanding of and tolerance for each person’s unique upbringing. While it was difficult to socially adjust to each place, I am so lucky to have met such wonderful, interesting people along the way.
WM: How did you become interested in Political Science? NN: My interest in Political Science, with a focus on International Relations, grew out of a variety of factors. While growing up in multiple countries, I found the beauty in each place and deeply