The following post was written by Berklee student Ziga Pirnat, a communications assistant in the Berklee Global Initiatives office who participated in the Berklee Mentorship Program.
Coincidence can sometimes be startling. That is usually my first thought when I remember a peculiar series of events that began in the fall semester of 2011. That was when I was accepted into the Berklee Mentorship Program and was connected with my mentors John and Teresa Howe from Belmont, Massachusetts. It would be unconceivable for me if someone told me at that point that, less than two years later, I would be witnessing a stirring sight of John’s sister-in-law hugging her second cousins in a remote town in Slovenia—long-lost relatives who had never known about each other before and might have never met if Berklee hadn’t assigned John and Teresa to be my mentors.
Indeed, Jane, Joanne, and Ingrid from the President’s Office did a wonderful job connecting me with the Howes. John and I first met at the opening meet-and-greet event of that year’s mentorship program, at the house of one of the mentors in Winchester. After a few words—not knowing anything about each other beforehand—we were astonished by how much we had in common. Before coming to Boston from my native Slovenia, I completed a degree in international relations and Indo-European languages, and worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. John, on the other hand, had studied international relations as well and was about to enter the world of diplomacy before choosing a different career path. He also shared my love for languages and, most of all, music. A singer and cosmopolite, he had travelled to many places around the world and was even familiar with my part of Europe. By the end of the evening, it felt like we were some old friends who had known each other for years.
My mentors Teresa and John with me in the middle
