Hi everyone! My name is Ari Kalinsky and I am from Long Island, New York. I am an incoming sophomore at Pitt. This summer I will be going to Cyprus for two weeks as part of the Plus 3 program. I am very excited to be participating in this program!

Before I talk about Plus3, I will share a little about myself. Here at Pitt, I am a member of Zeta Beta Tau, which is a social fraternity. In my free time, I enjoy working out and spending time with family and friends. In the past, I have traveled to Italy, Greece, Iceland and Canada. I look forward to adding Cyprus to that list!

Shifting to academics and professional aspects, I am an industrial engineering (IE) student here at Pitt. I am a “technical member” of the Bolivia team of Engineers without Borders. This semester I have also been involved with research through Dr. Wheeler in the Mathematics department. This summer I will be interning at ADTN international (after Plus3 is over of course), which is a clothing production and sales company. In the long term, I hope to use my IE degree to get into the field of operations research– perhaps something to do with consulting too.

As I have mentioned, I am very excited to travel with Plus3 Cyprus. There are many “touristy” parts of Cyprus I am looking forward to. Particularly, I cannot wait to be on the beach and swim in the Mediterranean. I also am looking forward to visiting some of the small villages in the mountains of Cyprus. In my past travels I have found some of these towns to be some of the most authentic.

At the same time, Plus3 Cyprus falls right in line with my professional goals. I think of IE as being an intersection of business and engineering. Industrial engineers are concerned with applying the concepts of math, data analysis, and engineering to optimize any sort of complex systems. This means that IEs are found in almost any industry, and that they are driving cost-effective innovation. With Plus3 being a program for engineers and business students, it is the perfect combination.

Cyprus in particular is perfect for this intersection. It is a leader in many global industries, but notably Cyprus excels in supply chain and ship management. These are both industries that heavily rely on industry engineers; seeing them firsthand will help me better understand the effect that IE has on the global economy everyday. I hope that this gives me a prespective to why my academic work is so important. Perhaps I will also learn things that Cypriot companies do differently from US companies.

I cannot wait for Plus3 Cyprus to be both an exploration of parts of IE and other cultures!