Kalatai Alberti, ’22, enrolled in the American Academy (AA) in Brazil when it launched in 2018. AA is a dual-enrollment program offered jointly at and the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), located in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil.
Before Kalatai Alberti heard of AA, he was majoring in mechatronics at a university in Brazil. He was working and attending school and had earned good grades in his classes; but he was not at all excited about engineering. Then he heard about the AA program and he threw his attention toward applying.
“When I thought about studying overseas or studying abroad, it felt so out of reach and so difficult that I really never had given it any thought,” Kalatai Alberti said. “So, when I saw that they were facilitating entrance into the U.S. in conjunction with Kent State, I thought ‘yeah that’s interesting.’ And then I called them at the Brazilian office there to learn more about it and how the program worked.”
What Kalatai Alberti saw as out of reach was actually attainable. The native of Imbituva, Parana, Brazil, holds the distinction of being the first graduate of Kent State’s American Academy, having marched at the Kent Campus with the spring Class of 2022. Alberti graduated with a Bachelor of Science in computer science with a concentration in robotics and embedded systems.
AA allows students to complete their first two years of undergraduate study in Brazil at the PUCPR campus, taking classes taught in English by Kent State faculty members and earning academic credit from both universities simultaneously. At the end of two years, students earn a Kent State Associate of Science and can then choose whether to finish their bachelor’s degree in the U.S. at Kent State’s Kent Campus or in Brazil at PUCPR.
Depending on their career path, students will receive a Kent State bachelor’s degree, a PUCPR bachelor’s degree or a bachelor’s degree from both institutions. Students who choose to complete their degrees at Kent State have the choice of more than 200 undergraduate degree programs, 36 of which can be completed in four years.