The Piece of Paper I Said I Didn't Need
Let's start with the part people usually skip over in these "new chapter" posts: I don't have a bachelor's degree.
I studied Hospitality Management at Glion and walked away with a diploma, not the full bachelor's. Life got in the way, and honestly, for years I told myself that was fine. More than fine as I was building on experience, certifications, creating new things, fixing things, and rebuilding things. What was a piece of paper going to teach me that running an actual business hadn't already?
As I'm publishing this blog, I just started a Master's in Marketing and Digital Communication at Falmouth University.
So clearly, something changed.
The Long Way Around
Here's the honest version of my career, not the LinkedIn version: I grew up working in my family's businesses in Vieste (grocery stores, a wholesale operation, a bungalow rental). I moved to Switzerland at 20 to study hospitality, worked in five-star hotels around the world, and eventually came back to work with my father being, as I liked to call myself, the "family jolly." I was working in the grocery stores, importing frozen fish from China and fresh salmon from Norway, starting my journey into the digital world cause "Virginia I need a website" or "Can you create this" was my everyday. Along the way, we built a B&B together, and I taught myself from scratch how to run its website, its booking systems, its social media, because nobody else was going to do it. I was the one in charge for that.
Then I opened my own place in Zürich. An Italian delicatessen. I did almost everything alone, down to sourcing every product myself. I picked the wrong location. I couldn't get the food production side working the way I needed. Eventually, I closed it.
I don't say that quickly because it's easy to say. It took me nearly two years to feel like myself again after that. It felt like failure, plainly, because it was one.
After that, I stepped away from the family business entirely, a decision I needed to make for myself, and took a job at a small consultancy in Zürich. On paper, I was a communication specialist. In practice, I was doing podcast production, social media management, event coordination, PA work, and business development, all on a contract for a fraction of the hours I was actually working. It wore me down more than I let on at the time.
Eventually, I left that too. I've spent the time since applying for full-time roles in Zürich, mostly without luck. Because in Zürich with no German and no bachelor's the doors stay closed.
So I did the thing that apparently a lot of "the most ignorant and stupid people" manage to do, as I once put it to myself in frustration: I decided to build something of my own again. Ideas to Action exists because I know, firsthand, what it's like to run a business completely alone, and I want to help other small business owners regain the time that gets swallowed by doing everything themselves. Blunt Spoon Society exists because a joke with a friend turned into something I actually believe in.
Why Go Back Now
Here's what changed my mind about school: this Master's isn't about proving I know nothing. It's about sharpening what I already know into something more strategic, more current, and frankly, more credible in a market that keeps closing doors on experience alone.
It's a fully online course, which fits the reality of my life right now: building two brands, taking on clients, figuring out rent. But Falmouth runs in-person events I plan to attend, and my boyfriend even suggested that we go there for a week next year so that I can fully experience the campus life.
I'm going to document this entire process publicly: the coursework, the failures, the small wins, all of it and apply what I learn in real time to my own businesses and to my clients. Not case studies from a textbook. Real ones, happening while I'm still learning the theory behind them.
The Actual Point
I spent years reassuring myself that I did not need that piece of paper cause I had experience and instead of "wasting" years to take a bachelor that was not going to teach me anything, I had all the experience and certification that I needed. It took me 5 minutes of research with Gemini and the "APL" (Accreditation of Prior Learning, basically, Falmouth's way of letting your work experience count toward meeting entry requirements instead of a traditional qualification) from Falmouth to understand that I can take that piece of paper and actually learn something more.
If you're sitting on the fence about going back to something (school, a certification, a skill you've been putting off) consider this your sign that it's not too late, and it's not a contradiction of everything you've already proven you can do.
Class starts next week. I'll see you there.
P.S. - If you want to follow the rest of this (the wins, the panic, the 11pm study sessions), I'm documenting it all in real time on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube . Come along.
