Meet Our Graduates
Lauren Bernardini
B.A. '06
It's probably only natural that Lauren Bernardini would choose to major in creative writing as an undergraduate at Penn's College of General Studies. The sommelier—or wine expert—at well-known Philadelphia restaurant Striped Bass, Lauren has won national wine industry awards for her articles about wine.
"I never could have achieved those awards without the people I worked with," she says. "But I am graduating from Penn. It's the thing in my life I'm proudest of."
After finishing high school in 1988, Lauren followed a nomadic path, living in London, Philadelphia, San Diego, and San Francisco. It was during her time in San Francisco that she began working in restaurants, ultimately learning to be a wine buyer. She attended San Francisco Community College and was accepted at Berkeley, but instead returned to Philadelphia.
While working as the general manager of the Philadelphia restaurant Rouge, Lauren learned from a colleague about Penn’s College of General Studies. "I hadn’t really thought about Penn," she says. "I assumed I couldn't afford it, but I did want to go to a good school." With the assistance of a Kay Scholarship—awarded to students with at least eight years of progressively responsible positions in the arts, business, the professions, or public service—Lauren was able to finish her studies at CGS.
"Attending CGS has been a fantastic, amazing experience," Lauren says. "The professors are really attentive and concerned. All the classes are personal and intimate, and when you see your professors around the campus they actually remember your name. And there's such a wonderful mix of ages in the classes, all the way up to 80, which adds so much to the learning experience.
After graduation Lauren will be on the move again, leaving her position at Striped Bass to take a job with a wine industry group in New York. "Now that I'm graduating I'm sad, but I'm thinking about graduate school.
Another of her goals is to give back to Penn by establishing a scholarship that will offer up to three classes a semester for restaurant people who want to go to CGS. "A lot of us get stuck in working in this industry," she says. "It's hard work, often without benefits, and people cap out quickly. But they do it because they don’t know any other way out. I'd like to change that."