First Generation, Global Ambitions: Pietro de Souza (M27) on Finding His Path at Minerva

Pietro de Souza almost did not apply to Minerva.

While living in Brazil during eleventh grade, Pietro came across a video made by a current student and found the university immediately intriguing. The learning model was unlike anything he'd seen. Still, Minerva seemed distant and difficult to imagine as a realistic option, so he moved on without thinking much more about it.

A year later, while participating in an academic enrichment program through Ismart Institute, the idea resurfaced. This time, Pietro’s college advisor introduced him to Brazilian students who had already been accepted to Minerva.

Seeing students with backgrounds similar to his own changed everything.

Knowing that other students from Brazil had successfully made the leap gave Pietro the confidence to apply. After being admitted to the Class of 2027, he launched a fundraising campaign and secured scholarships from four separate organizations to support his move to San Francisco.

When he arrived for his first year, Pietro became the first person in his family to attend university. Neither his parents nor his grandparents had previously had that opportunity.

What the Classes Are Actually Like

Pietro arrived with reasonable skepticism about Minerva's format. That didn't last long once he was actually in the classes.

“In Minerva classes, I have more interactions and hands-on experiences than I ever had in any in-person class,” he said. 

Classes are capped at 20 students and run as seminars, so every session is discussion-based. There are no lectures to sit through passively. Students work through problem-solving exercises, debates, simulations, and the occasional role-play scenario. The small class sizes also allow students to get to know other students and the professor, rather than being one face among hundreds.

One session that stuck with Pietro was a negotiation simulation in his Complex Systems course. Students were split into two groups: one played city hall in a hypothetical city, the other played the board of a large construction company. Each student had individual objectives that the other side didn't know about, and the task was to negotiate an agreement while quietly working toward their own goals within it. 

The negotiation techniques covered in class became immediately practical rather than abstract. “You either used them,” Pietro reflected, “or you did not get what you were after.”

‍

Choosing a Direction

When it came time to declare a major, Pietro did not yet have a specific career path in mind. What he did have was a clear sense of what mattered to him.

Growing up in Brazil, he had felt the constraints of the public school system firsthand, including the limited resources and the ceiling it placed on students from certain backgrounds. That experience stayed with him, and somewhere in high school, he decided that whatever he ended up doing would connect in some way to improving educational access.

That perspective ultimately led him to pursue a major in Business alongside a minor in Cognition, Brain, and Behavior. “Even if I do not end up working directly in education,” he said, “having an impact in education will remain central to my goals.”

Pietro is also drawn to Minerva’s emphasis on applied learning and project-based work, which allows students to build practical experience alongside their academic coursework rather than treating the two as separate paths.

‍

On the Distance Between Dream and Reality

Pietro's journey to Minerva required persistence at every step. As a first-generation student, he navigated the application process largely without a roadmap while simultaneously raising the funding needed to move across the world and begin his education in San Francisco among classmates representing more than 40 countries.

Before any of that felt possible, though, what mattered most was seeing that students from backgrounds similar to his own had already done it. For prospective students who view Minerva as compelling but difficult to imagine for themselves, Pietro believes that visibility matters. The distance between where you are and where you want to be is often smaller than it looks from the outside.

“If you are also curious, motivated, and willing to challenge traditional ideas, I encourage you to consider applying to Minerva. If you are looking for an education that promotes critical thinking, collaboration, and hands-on engagement with real-world problems, Minerva might be the right place for you, just as it was for me.”

‍

Start your Minerva application today.

‍