Lars Ahlqvist

Student

“No matter what I go through in life, I’ll always know that nothing could ever be worse than that year.”

The year that Lars Ahlqvist is sometimes grateful for-but more often would like to forget-is the year he spent with the elite military Special Forces in his native Sweden. “We were working in small units—groups of three—operating special combat missions on the east coast of Sweden, near Stockholm,” says Lars. “It was incredibly tough but I really learned how to rely on myself and be resourceful.” But Lars—who speaks Swedish, English, French and is learning Spanish—hopes his life will take the shape more of a Lee Iacocca than a Rambo.

“I’m studying international business, and I’d like to transfer to NYU to get that East Coast experience,” says Lars. “Then I’d like to work for a big Swedish telecommunications company and hopefully still get to see other parts of the world.” And one part of the world Lars reports that he’s quite happy with at the moment is the SMC campus. “I met a guy in Sweden who’d been playing on the tennis team here, and he told me what a great school it was. And since then, I’ve met a lot of businessmen and lawyers who tell me the same thing,” says Lars. “I’ve had such good teachers here, from UCLA, from Columbia,” he continues. “I’m very surprised at how good the level of instruction actually is.”

Lars plans to use his languages and American education to make his career with an international firm. “I’d like to live abroad for a number of years and then go home to Sweden,” he says. But while at SMC, he’s made a study out of getting the most from the system. “People should get as familiar as possible with the program,” he says, “so that when they transfer, they haven’t wasted their time. I would say: do your homework before you do your homework.”

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