Photo from personal archive

"[After graduating from AUBG], I was ready to stand on my own feet and fight my battles on my own," Fjolla says. One year after she graduated, she won three scholarships for postgraduate studies and she chose to continue her education in the Sussex European Institute in Brighton, UK. "I wanted to study European affairs, as well as spend a year in the UK, and I don't regret the choice I made." She got the job immediately after she finished her master's in Contemporary European Studies in Brighton in 2007.

Fjolla, 25, who is from Prizren, Kosovo, has worked as a spokesperson for the European Commission office in Kosovo since November 2007. "The tasks I have are demanding, but I put all my efforts in doing them right," she says. She believes that in the future she will continue communicating European integration issues in one way or another" Fjolla says.

Her brother Lum, who is currently in his first year at AUBG, says the two qualities most typical of his sister are being critical and constructive. When he was born, five-year old Fjolla just could not figure out why so many people were coming to see the baby, Lum says. "She thought I definitely was not the king, and I was nobody famous - just a baby - why all the fuss?"

Her childhood friend Mimoza Pirana says she wonders why Fjolla did not become an actress. She describes Fjolla as someone who does not like to take risks. "Before every decision, she has to think very, very hard." However, when it comes to smaller things, she can also be impulsive. Dokle remembers how Fjolla would work until late at night in the Main Building. Often Fjolla would send an e-mail asking Dokle to go see a movie or get something to eat in the middle of the night.

Dokle says that Fjolla discovered graphic design at AUBG: "I believe she still loves it. Her works for the graphic design class were ... beautiful in their simplicity." Another thing Fjolla discovered at AUBG was her deep interest in Europe and the European idea. She says European studies professor Cosmina Tanasoiu is the person who made her fall in love with this concept. Another professor who motivated Fjolla is her first journalism professor, Laura Kelly, with whom she still keeps in touch.

While she was at AUBG, she was a FlashNews reporter and an editor of the literary magazine Fly in the Head. Fjolla liked to talk a lot about her home country - Kosovo. Dokle still remembers the passion with which Fjolla was talking about the culture, music, people, and history of her country.

"I like to believe that AUBG has pulled the best out of me and really allowed me to explore who I am and what I like doing," says Fjolla. She adds the university is a good place for students to challenge themselves and do the things they want. Fjolla says she formed a lot of work habits while at AUBG; some of them being respect for deadlines, attention to detail, and listening to other people.

Fjolla is now engaged and waiting to move in the apartment in Pristina that she and her fiancé recently bought. She says she is happy that through her brother Lum she will be able to keep her link with AUBG.