by Vaughn Ryan

What do you do for work in the USA?
I work at Fandango as a Marketing Manager for FandangoNOW. FandangoNOW is Fandango's premium video on demand service where you can buy or rent over 40,000 movies and TV Shows and watch anytime, anywhere on a wide range of devices. My day-to-day focus is finding strategies that grow FandangoNOW's customer base. I plan digital media campaigns and build promotions that excite fans and deliver top quality movies and TV. Our goal as a company, is to foster a central movie hub where fans can go for all their movie needs and exclusive products. Fandango owns MovieClips, a massively popular YouTube channel for movie trailers and it's also the "beginning" of a movie's life. Fandango itself sells movie tickets and owns RottenTomatoes, which hosts critic and audience reviews. While it's in theaters, this can be considered the "middle" of a movie's life. A movie then releases on FandangoNOW for you to enjoy online anywhere, which is the longest and technically the "end" or "continuation" of a movie's life. Additionally, Fandango is launching a new consumer product division called Fandango FanShop this month.

What program did you study in Cattolica?
I studied abroad through International Student Exchange Programs (ISEP) and was enrolled at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Fall Semester 2014. My home school was Chapman University in Southern California, where I graduated with an B.A. in Advertising and Public relations from the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

Favorite memory?
My favorite memory was a dinner with a group of close friends when our semester was coming to an end. Our friends from Belgium hosted two other Americans, an Australian, an Italian and myself. It was a fun night and great to see unique people from around the world laughing about the same things.

What's to miss?
I definitely miss the culture, and learning differences between the major cities I was able to visit. I loved my time in Milan and will miss its nightlife. The city was beautiful and I'm glad I spent a lot of time there not only during the week, but on most weekends. I also tried Campari (accidentally) in Milan for the first time and hated it. Six months later though, I loved it and it's now one of my favorite liqueurs. Other than that, I miss everything. The people, art, culture, food, music, fashion, the list could go on for a while.

A story to tell...
I flew in to Milan with my friend from the USA. We made it to the train station in Milan around 1:00pm on a beautiful day, but it was hot. We looked up Università Cattolica on a map and decided we could walk to it. The minute we started walking and crossed the first street, a wheel on my friend's rolling luggage broke. It weighed 70 pounds (32 kg). He decided to persevere and go on using just one wheel, but after a few steps, the other wheel broke. He and I had to drag his 70-pound luggage for half a mile (804 m) to get to Università Cattolica our first day. Luckily, the day turned around as we met two students from Belgium while getting our keys to the apartment. We quickly became friends and still keep in touch.