When Amy Currotto moved to Florida from Memphis, Tennessee before her senior year in high school, she was still trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

While her drive as an adaptive track athlete led her to win three first places at the 2011 Florida state finals, her passion for opera took center stage.

After studying opera at The Hoffman Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall she met SPC vocal professor Marilyn Michaels, and attended SPC’s 2011 Summer Vocal Institute.

“The summer vocal institute is an incredible program,” she said. “They bring in great clinicians from all over the world.”

That fall she enrolled at SPC as a vocal performance major focusing on a career in opera. The next few years were the start of a new and unexpected path.

An unexpected turn

While studying opera and taking general education classes at SPC, a friend encouraged her to try out for St. Petersburg College’s Model UN team.

“He was telling me how much it changed his life,” Currotto said. “It seemed so different from what I was doing but I went out on a limb and applied.”

She was accepted into the program and hasn’t looked back since, attending everything Model UN she could get her hands on. Her first conference was in Washington D.C. in 2013 and she has attended four other conferences with the St. Petersburg College Model UN team, winning numerous awards.

In addition to competing, she has also served as a staff member for several conferences locally and at the national level, giving her a different perspective on the Model UN and uncovering a new passion.

SPC’s Model UN team received the Distinguished Delegation Award at the National Model United Nations (NMUN) conference held in April in New York. The award places them in the top 13 percent of the international pool of 5,000 college and university delegates.

View pictures on the SPC Model UN Facebook page.

“Our team has produced several students who have decided to change their career goals to international politics or business,” said SPC Professor Earl Fratus. “The Model United Nations sparks a passion in many of these students who might not have been sure what their future might entail. SPC is producing international leaders through its Model United Nations Team.”

A newfound passion for disability law

An experience in her wheelchair in a New York subway sparked a passion in Currotto for disability law.

“I was in a subway one day with my friends and I couldn’t get through the turnstile,” she said. “My friends had already carried me down the stairs only to find that the handicapped turnstile was locked.”

After pressing a button for help, she was told she could either get up and walk through or call an ambulance.

“It hit me that there’s not enough advocacy for disabled people around the world,” she said. “As someone who handles this every single day I thought, if not me, then who?”

Her eyes lit up as she explained that disability law is not just domestic – it’s a human rights issue that impacts people all over the world.

“I didn’t wake up one day and think I want to be a lawyer,” she said. “It wasn’t something I was planning.”

Currotto is taking classes at SPC and the University of South Florida (USF). She plans to graduate from USF next spring with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music. She is also studying for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) at Blackstone Prep and hopes to start law school the following fall.

Summer UNESCO internship

Recently, Currotto was chosen to be an Ambassador for the UNESCO Center for Peace. The two-week camp, held in July in Washington, D.C. provides high schools students from around the world with a unique learning experience focused on:

• Cultural diversity
• Global inequality
• Conflict mediation

“Our main goal is to inspire these high school kids to go back to their societies and be peace builders,” she said. “I want to replicate the experience I was given when I participated in Model UN and inspire students to go out in their community and make a difference — to question why things are the way they are in a positive way.”

She has also volunteered for Junior Achievement, the United Nations Association of Tampa Bay and more.

She takes to heart the words of SPC Professor Roy Slater: “If you ever want to make a difference you have to start in your community first.”

She credits Slater, Fratus, Heather Roberson and other SPC professors with much of her success: “None of this would have ever been possible without the individual attention and mentorship of my SPC professors.”