Nearly 20 years removed from their days in Keck Theater, 2005年的科琳·罗伯逊和06年的安吉洛·胡萝卜素在国际舞台上重聚
In spring 2021, 2005年的科琳·罗伯逊刚刚从西雅图的旅游营销工作中辞职，这时她收到了安杰洛·胡萝卜素的一份临时工作邀请:她愿意搬到欧洲加入他在意大利的旅游公司吗, LivTours? At first, Robertson declined. Between navigating the pandemic and expecting her second child, 没有国际搬迁，她已经有足够的事情要做了. But when she was laid off last year, the timing felt right.
她说:“我和丈夫决定，在接下来的30年里，我们不想再打卡上下班了。. “We wanted to do something different. We had an opportunity to really change our lives.”
去年6月, Robertson began working as LivTours’ head of marketing; three months later, she and her family relocated from Seattle to Rome. Robertson now oversees all the company’s marketing channels, including its website and social media platforms, and manages its public relations and paid search marketing efforts. 这是之前在livtours和胡萝卜素公司中不存在的一个角色, the company’s founder and co-owner, 我很幸运雇到了一位技术娴熟的员工，他也是我以前的同学.
“Once she got here, we just aligned,他说. “我们发现了那种轻松幽默的化学反应，这让我们在大学时成为了真正的好朋友. I treasure it very much.”
Robertson and Carotenuto initially met as theater majors at Oxy, attending classes during the day, performing in the evenings, rehearsing late at night, 挤出时间参加激情项目，比如即兴表演, 合唱团, and sketch comedy shows. It was a discipline, Robertson says, 这让她为自己目前的角色所固有的不间断的努力和合作做好了准备.
“戏剧让我准备好与想法与我不同的人合作:与内向者和外向者, 从非常有条理和注重细节的人到更随性的人,” Robertson says. “与‘戏剧人’一起工作让我接触到了所有这些不同的沟通和合作方式. 我们必须在一天结束时做出一些东西，即使它不成功. We had to stand it up in front of people.”
在她的营销生涯中，罗伯逊所利用的远不止她的戏剧学位. During her first year at Oxy, a junior dormmate in Stewart-Cleland Hall told her, “It doesn’t matter what you major in; find the best professors and take their classes,” and over the next four years, Robertson applied that advice in true interdisciplinary fashion. 她辅修认知科学，第一年和罗杰·博斯切(Roger Boesche)、亚瑟·G. 库恩斯思想史杰出教授(“我见过的最鼓舞人心的人之一”), 并在生物系的万图纳研究小组工作，是一名经过认证的水肺潜水员, 在雷东多海滩进行浅水潜水研究鱼类. 奥施康定的经历更侧重于stem方面，教会了她如何解释和评估数据, 这一专业领域被证明是有益的，因为她扩大了livours的数字营销活动.
“这是对完全不同的人群的完全不同的接触, with a much 更多的 analytical approach,” Robertson says. “To be a successful digital marketer, 你必须以数据为导向，对你的分析进行批判性思考, 从流失率到广告活动表现，再到特定渠道产生的收入，都要进行检查. 在我的海洋学和认知科学工作之外，我很少练习这项技能, but it’s something I use every day in my job.”
While Robertson dove into the liberal arts experience, Carotenuto spent his Oxy summers launching his tourism career. Between his sopho更多的 and junior years, he returned home to Italy to help his parents, professional musicians who ran an orchestra and opera nonprofit, stage a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute，邀请了刚刚从美国硕士课程毕业的歌剧演唱家. “那是我当导游的第一次经历，”他说. “I took the cast out and showed them Rome.”
After a semester abroad in London and a spring production of 老实人 at Occidental, Carotenuto returned to Italy for a summer of guiding tours, which turned into a full-time job after graduation. Over the next six years of working for a large tourism company, 他意识到，有一部分旅行者已经开始把更多的度假资金花在体验上，而不是机票或住宿上，而这部分人并没有得到旅游业的充分服务. Carotenuto calls these travelers the “dreamers”: affluent, 受过高等教育的专业人士，他们在旅行前研究了一个地方的所有小生境和角度，为假期做准备, with the goal of experiencing it to the hilt. 在回应, Carotenuto and his wife, 克里斯汀, founded LivItaly, 一个可持续发展的旅游公司，提供个性化的私人和小团体旅游.
“实际上，意大利文化的方方面面都成了一种服务，”他说. When the couple decided to expand outside of Italy, they rebranded the company as LivTours, 该公司目前在西欧22个城市提供350多条线路. In addition to focusing on small groups, 哪一个减少了大规模旅游对环境和经济的影响, LivTours hires local employees, designs experiences around local businesses, reduces waste, and gives back to heritage sites.
和罗伯逊一样，胡萝卜素认为他所受的氧氧嘧啶教育对他选择的职业是“必不可少的”. “Oxy was superior at teaching people how to speak, 如何交叉参考通识教育——导游必须涉及很多话题——以及如何在情感层面上建立联系,他说. “We work with 500 tour guides across Europe, and when I give them workshops, I don’t just talk about how to stand and speak in public, I talk about how to induce emotions with storytelling. It’s invaluable.”
最近，LivTours的团队又增加了一名Oxy校友:23岁的Chloe Hetzel, a psychology major from Los Altos Hills, who joined the company in February as a marketing intern. Since she hadn’t studied abroad during college, 她与国际学生教育协会(IES Abroad)会面，讨论毕业后在美国以外实习的可能性. She was drawn to the chance to work in Rome, explore a career in marketing, and learn from a fellow Oxy graduate.
“Interning abroad is going to be a phenomenal learning experience,” she says of the three-month, full-time opportunity. “我渴望从这段经历中得到尽可能多的收获，无论是在个人还是职业方面.”
罗伯逊相信，赫策尔将最大限度地利用她在livours的时间. “People from Occidental capitalize on opportunity,” she says. “They dig in, they want to learn 更多的, they want to 试一试 更多的. No one does anything halfway. And because the Socratic method is so embedded in an Oxy education, our alums proactively and readily ask questions. People get steeped in that value at Occidental. 这就是当你和一个Oxy校友一起工作时你会得到的——一个渴望知识的人.”
For Carotenuto, 将这种求知欲和对终身学习的渴望融入到liveours的精神中，是他的公司的下一步. Having successfully emerged from the pandemic, “新的挑战是树立我们的价值观，这样我们的员工才能真正实践这些价值观,他说. “西方社区的亲密关系和提供更高意义的东西的能力——它们存在于我的商业模式中.”
