Jacopo Felisi is an Alumni of Dentistry at Universidad Europea de Valencia. Now, he’s an organising member of the European Dental Society, which promotes education, mobility, cooperation and business in the dental industry within European Union countries and the UK.
Please tell us when you studied and which faculty and campus you were at. How was your journey after completing your studies at Universidad Europea until the creation of your project?
I graduated in 2019 in Dentistry at Universidad Europea de Valencia. Since graduating, a lot has happened to me. I remember when I finished my degree, I was really excited about opening those doors that were out there. I left UEV with lots of motivation to enter the working world, and at the same time, to continue studying and experiencing new things. This attitude led me to face a lot of very different situations.
With the idea of going to live in France, I travelled around Europe to learn another language, and ended up having a distinctly rare experience in Martinique and Tunisia. Covid-19 came right after and meant I had to abandon this plan, so I went back to my country, Italy, and started working in Venice. After a little more than a year there, I set up my own business to manage a dental clinic in Venice that also provides other services to dental professionals, other institutions and companies in the industry.
This business also brought together the efforts I had embarked on during my university years with the creation of the UEV Dental Club and to follow the independent organisation the "European Dental Society", which aims to promote education, mobility, cooperation and business in the dental industry within European Union countries and the UK.
Tell us a little more about your work. What do you enjoy the most? What challenges do you face on the daily? Do you have an anecdote you would like to share?
Well, the truth is, in my job there isn’t anything that I don’t like. Of course, sometimes it gets difficult, but there is so much to compensate for all the hard work required. What I like most is the contact with other people, both the patients I treat in my clinic and those with whom I collaborate. I interact with so many people every day via the “European Dental Society” and other projects. If I’m being honest, what I like most is the dynamic relationship with lots of people from different countries, where I can practice the languages I learned at university, especially English and Spanish.
Thinking of an anecdote, after finishing university I was on a plane flying from Valencia to Paris. Suddenly, a gentleman a few seats in front of me fainted and his face started to turn purple. A man next to him started asking for help from a doctor. Nobody got up, so I went and picked him up to help him to the cockpit. After hitting him a couple of times, I managed to wake him up and asked him if he had diabetes. He only had enough energy to say yes. I gave him a Coca-Cola and after a couple of minutes he was alright. The gentleman was about to fall into a coma because of hypoglycaemia. The class I’d had a few months before about emergencies during a dental consultation saved his life. You should never underestimate what you can learn and the resources you have in that moment, even if they seem useless or overly simple. You never know if one day it might help you or someone around you.
Why did you choose Universidad Europea? What values and characteristics do you think it has that have contributed to your professional development?
I chose Universidad Europea for the opportunity to study what I wanted and to face an international environment. At this university, the value that has helped towards my personal development the most is the culture of hard work instilled in me by my professors and everyone else who works there. The international nature of the university contributed towards my professional outlook and towards becoming a global citizen.
What is your best memory from Universidad Europea?
Without a doubt, my best memory from the university is the classmates I met and the friends that truly became my family during my five years of study.
What advice would you give to those who have just finished their studies and are now going out into the working world?
The advice I’d give to recent graduates and students is to never stop learning and to be hungry for knowledge. The world nowadays is a race and it changes very quickly, now more than ever, and the only way to stay ahead is to keep learning. Make sure to keep that hunger for knowledge, stay curious about your surroundings and critical of what you know and think is true. Only in this way will you be able to gain in the long term, despite having failed in the short term, and only then will you be able to change the world you’re living in for the better.