Roberto Cardano '17 Recruiting Profile

I have a diverse and unique cultural background that makes me different from almost all other applicants and this background is nothing any university application can truly capture or grasp. I have lived in various countries: born in Caracas and left when I was eight years old, constantly in contact with European culture, travelling to visit my Spaniard and Italian family every single year of my summer holiday, in Thailand since I was 8 until the present day studying and growing up attending an American International School. What all this moving and travelling around did for me as a person is it help me ramify my cultural schemas. By this I mean it led to me evolving as an individual because I was indulged into the collectivist Asian culture, which heavily differs from the individualist culture of South America, and Europe, two cultures I was also raised in. This was one of the many instances my cultural background helped me adapt to new surroundings, those surroundings being Thailand. I speak English, Italian, and Spanish properly and fluently, I possess a very good level of Portuguese, and have a basic understanding of Thai and Japanese. This provides me with the possibility of communicating properly in my native language with the people most of the time. Enabling me to communicate just as well with another local member of the community with my diverse skill set because once again, through the variety in my language toolbox, I am able to adapt to new situations and resolve issues on my own. This not only allows me to communicate but to see and understand the different perspectives of these diverse cultures. My short, intense, and wonderful experience of playing football in different continents has provided me with another tool critical for adapting myself to new challenges and evolving circumstances. I have played in Italy, Spain, The United States of America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. In Italy I have spent two whole summers with the AC Milan academy, after that venture, in Spain I played with the academy teams of R.C. Deportivo de la Coruna and Leganes. These experiences allowed me to indulge my football craft in the different styles all over the world: the Spanish and Dutch (coach in the USA) technical game of passing and moving, the elegant style of Italian quiet soccer, and the rough, fast paced soccer learned from my English coaches in Thailand. I held a meeting with Vice President of Atlético de Madrid, received offers for playing in Thailand and other Asian countries. Throughout all of these experiences I have learned that all cultures can approach a specific situation differently. By going through the experiences listed above, I have also learned that all these perspectives are correct in their own way. Through experiencing this, I can grasp the ideas and thoughts of others with a more malleable and open mind. I forecast a much more globalized and interconnected world with a higher degree of exchange of habits, culture, ideas, experiences and alliances among the nations. My goal is to become a profitable citizen to the world that is ready to adapt himself to a better world so that it may be unitedly built. Thus, willingly contribute to minimize the high number of differences and problems that apply to all global citizens in order to help better the world we live in today.