Humanitarian Studies Undergraduate Student Spotlight: Holly Aloi, c/o ‘22

by: Emily Furfaro

Despite the restrictions and challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, recent graduate Holly Aloi made the most out of her college experience. Her involvement includes going on a GO! (Global Outreach) Trip to the Dominican Republic, studying abroad in Stockholm, being a member of the Sigma Xi and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies, tutoring for the Psychology Department, and interning at POTS (Part of the Solution).

Holly graduated in May 2022 with a double major in Humanitarian Studies and Psychology, and minors in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as well as Latin American Studies. She initially came to Fordham planning on pursuing a biology degree, but found that her passion lay elsewhere: “I realized biology wasn’t for me and instead decided to find a major that could better encompass my passions and was something I could be excited about. I ended up finding the Humanitarian Studies program heading into my sophomore year and loved what it had to offer.”

Consistent throughout all of Holly’s diverse interests is a “perspective that is focused on disability and the experience of disabled people.” Holly seeks to bring disability awareness to conversation in all of her classes, and this passion led her to write her thesis about “the humanitarian and legal responses to Colombians with physical disabilities due to the ongoing armed conflict.”

Now a graduate, Holly knows she wants to work with people in some way. Her internship at an organization called Part of the Solution in the Bronx has been incredibly rewarding. Although Holly is from River Vale, New Jersey, she found herself “satisfied with the impact that [she], as a non-native Fordham student, is leaving The Bronx community, knowing [she is] able to help people while not infringing on their autonomy.” Holly is excited to bring this respect and value for others into her work in the future, and to “use my privileges to help others not in a self-fulfilling way, but in a way that the most people can benefit from the ways I can use my voice and the resources I have access to.”