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Anthony Fratto

Anthony Fratto Oyler, Class of 2017

Learning Abroad Program:  Swansea University Exchange 

Hinckley Global Internship: Dublin, Ireland

U Background: HBS, Chemical Engineering and Political Science, 2017

Current Position: Graduate Engineering Student and Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

My Story

I knew coming into the University of Utah that I wanted to study abroad. Since I was an engineering student, the best year for me to study abroad was sophomore year as the engineering classes I was taking were general enough that I could receive credit for them at another institution. As cliché as it is, it definitely reconfigured my life trajectory. For one I discovered a love of traveling. Whether it was weekend trips or backpacking for weeks on end, I realized I couldn’t get enough of it and still do this day have trouble not planning a trip somewhere. It also drew me towards the possibility of working abroad. I grew up in Salt Lake City all my life and while I loved the city and the University of Utah (actually even more so after studying abroad because it gave me a new-found appreciation for the incredible natural beauty of our state) I knew that I was going to move upon graduating.

Anthony in UK

Therefore, upon returning from Swansea, I wanted to start getting a better idea of what a career working abroad or within an international context might entail. As such, in the spring of 2016 I went on a two-week integrative learning program in Iceland focused on renewable energy and then worked at a small consulting company in Dublin the spring of 2017 through the Hinckley’s Global Internship program. These experiences definitely helped shape me into the kind of student I am and allowed me to get into my dream graduate school at MIT. I learned to become more independent, self-sufficient, confident, willing to try new things, and I realized not to stress as much (because everything that can go wrong while traveling usually does at one point or another).

When I got to graduate school this past fall, similar to the U, I came in knowing I wanted to intern abroad over the summer. While I was abroad in Wales and Ireland, I traveled to Spain multiples times and loved the country. So, I applied for an internship with a global energy/utility company headquartered in Madrid, got accepted and have been here since May. For my internship in Dublin, a key reason my supervisor hired me was that he saw my passion for simply wanting to work abroad and my previous experience of having lived in the U.K. for a semester. For my current internship in Madrid, despite my lack of Spanish, they cited my past ability to have worked successfully in another country and my other Hinckley internships within state and national government as the reason I stood out to them.

I am unsure what my immediate future holds after graduate school but I do know I want it to be international. I am incredibly interested in pursuing international consulting, or working for the State Department on energy issues throughout the world. I may also continue on with the company I am currently interning for (but relocating to their London office). As I research/focus specifically in energy, electricity grids, renewables and storage, etc. I find many of the issues are faced by a global world and will require us to learn from one another’s engineering and policy solutions as well as strong diplomacy that protects us from climate change. 

And one last item I would like to point out is that the funding the U’s abroad program gives is amazing!!! There is no way I would have been able to do Wales or Ireland without the generosity of the scholarships the program gives. I tried my best while at the U to dispel the myth that only kids with wealthy parents can do these types of programs. I come from a very middle-class family who does not have the financial ability to pay for any part of these experiences and your scholarships allowed me to have the two of the best semesters of my college experience.

Last Updated: 7/12/22