Stefano Pagani graduated from NuVu High School in 2019, and it was the NuVu Summer program that led a curious 13 year old upon this journey.

As a child, Stefano says he was always interested in dismantling and rebuilding everything he could get his hands on. “I was taking apart hair dryers and making little fan cars with them, and getting soldering kits to explore with,” he recalls. It wasn’t until he left his Montessori elementary school and moved into the Lexington public school system when things began to shift. He learned quickly that his strengths did not shine when sitting down for standardized tests or taking a specific math class. “Suddenly, a narrative was put on my life: ‘Oh, this is work, but you're not good at working.’” He recalls struggling to keep up with the other kids in class, and feeling discouraged that the passionate learning he once embraced was becoming out of reach.

Around this time a family friend suggested they check out an open house for the NuVu Summer program. “When I came to the NuVu space, and saw all of the projects and the excitement around what they were doing—I was like, wow, this is everything I love to do.” When they learned that there was also an actual full-time school here at NuVu, Stefano’s family decided to use the summer program as a test…one he says led to enrolling that fall. “NuVu immediately had an atmosphere that allowed me to thrive, and I knew right away that I wanted to go there. I remember that I'd come home to our family dinners and I could just talk for hours about  everything I did that day, and that continued throughout my four years,” he fondly recalls.

Currently a senior in product design at Parsons School of Design in New York, Stefano says that he now realizes the importance of his early training in the design process, and the immediate advantages he had in college with this experience under his belt. ”It's really rare to be in a place where you can practice that design process for every moment of every day,  every week and then do it so often that you can comfortably fail and mess up a bunch and learn so much from that experience. I think that's really special,” he says.

With a few years distancing himself from high school, Stefano says that lately he’s found himself reflecting upon the lessons of self worth that he learned at NuVu, and the feeling of doing something you love and connect with.  “Back when I was in public school, I was always told that work is this certain thing, and that I am bad at that thing,” recalls Stefano. “ I had been telling myself that this notion meant that I'm slow or unmotivated— even though I never really felt that way. Then suddenly I'm at NuVu, working all day, even working through lunch, but not even thinking about it. I had this very deep form of satisfaction that changed my life.”

Not ready to jump into college after NuVu, Stefano says he opted for a gap year instead, taking time to consider his next steps while working at Internships NuVu helped coordinate. When the time came to apply to college,  he felt well prepared. “Any one NuVu project would be the capstone of a traditional portfolio and at NuVu you have a plethora of them — I had 40 projects to choose from when applying to schools, and I got into every product design program I applied to.

NuVu’s built-in portfolio is not only good for college applications, but for other programs as well. “I applied to a study abroad program recently at a design school in Sweden. It was very, very selective,” he explains. “About half of the projects in my portfolio were NuVu projects, and I had the chance to paint the story of where this passion started from, and then how I refined it through university.”

This winter Stefano returned to NuVu during his winter break, and says he experienced a feeling of coming full circle in his NuVu journey. On site in Cambridge, he offered guidance to students, sitting in on project reviews, and even giving his own presentation on his work.

“I never really got to express my gratitude for the people at the school, and it's nice to have the opportunity to do so now,” he reflects. "Everyone at NuVu shares the same passion as the students, and I can see that in the work they do. And to be here and relive that feeling again is so rewarding.”

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