She found her place at Pitt. Now, this undergraduate has created a bridge for others.

When Wiktoria Kopacz arrived at the University of Pittsburgh in January 2024, she came with ambitious goals.

The undergraduate student from Krosno, a small city in southern Poland, had her sights set on a career in medicine and neuroscience. She would eventually conduct research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, earn a highly competitive neuroscience placement at Sweden's Karolinska Institute and contribute to cancer-focused artificial intelligence research.

Yet despite those accomplishments, Kopacz found herself struggling with something much more personal.

She was lonely.

"I left my family, my closest friends and people who knew me best," said Kopacz, a junior neuroscience major on the pre-med track in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and David C. Frederick Honors College. "For the first time in my life, I had to build everything from scratch in a place where I knew almost no one."

Though she was born in Philadelphia while her parents were temporarily living in the United States, Kopacz lived nearly her entire life in Poland, where she graduated from high school and spent one semester in medical college before deciding to study in America.

She knew little about the U.S. higher education system but, after researching medical schools, discovered Pitt's strong reputation in medicine and biomedical research and decided to apply. She felt excited and overwhelmed when she arrived in Pittsburgh to begin her studies, but the transition proved more difficult than she expected.

Studying abroad can open students up to life-changing opportunities - research experiences, academic achievement and career advancement, to name a few. But Kopacz found the emotional challenges, like distance from friends, family and familiarity, often went unacknowledged.

"The thing that nobody really talked about is how it feels to leave your entire life behind," she said.

She arrived on campus knowing no one. Living in a residence hall with a new roommate and navigating a different educational system, she quickly realized that succeeding academically was only one part of the challenge. The harder task was finding a sense of belonging.

"I think many international students arrive and what they are really secretly searching for is connection," Kopacz said.

As she befriended other international students, she discovered she wasn't alone. Many appeared confident and successful on the surface but privately, "many were struggling with loneliness, homesickness or just feeling like they didn't fully belong," she said. "I felt the same way at first."

Despite those challenges, Kopacz immersed herself in research and academic opportunities. She joined the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center as a research study assistant, contributing to studies examining liver disease, tumor regeneration and cellular signaling pathways. She later became an AI research intern with Ataraxis AI, helping develop models that predict breast cancer recurrence through precision medicine approaches.

But a turning point came during the fall of 2025 when Kopacz earned a neuroscience research placement at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, one of Europe's premier medical research institutions and the organization responsible for awarding the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Selected from a pool of more than 150 international applicants, she spent months conducting neuroscience research while attending lectures and a Nobel symposium.

The experience expanded her scientific horizons, but it also provided something unexpected: perspective.

Away from the daily pressures of grades, applications and career planning, Kopacz found herself reflecting on her own journey as an international student.

"I wanted to create the kind of support system I wished every international student, including me, had when they first arrived," she said.

That idea became Bridge Ahead, a mentorship and advocacy initiative designed to help international students navigate both the practical and emotional realities of studying in the United States. In early 2026, Kopacz launched the program at Pitt and began reaching out to fellow international students, recruiting mentors and sharing resources through social media.

The response came quickly.

Within weeks, students from universities across the country were reaching out - seeking advice, support and, in many cases, connection with someone who understood what they were experiencing.

One of Kopacz's earliest conversations was with a first-semester international student from Egypt studying at Carnegie Mellon University.

"I expected him to ask specific questions," she said. "Instead, he just wanted to talk."

That interaction reinforced what she had learned through her own experience: Often students don't need answers as much as they need connection.

Kopacz will attempt to build some of that connection when Bridge Ahead participates in Pitt's International Welcome Week, Aug. 3-15. The week is designed to introduce undergraduate students to resources, services and to each other.

The opportunity to participate, Kopacz said, is especially meaningful because "if a five-minute conversation or one QR code can make someone feel a little less alone, then it's worth being there."

Today, Bridge Ahead has established pilot chapters and outreach partnerships at institutions including Yale, Duke and New York universities, and is continuing to build relationships at additional campuses. The initiative has connected more than 50 students with mentors and peer-support resources and continues to recruit student leaders across the country.

As the organization grows, Kopacz hopes to expand beyond mentorship by offering conversations and workshops focused on mental health, well-being and school-life balance.

"International students leave families behind, friends, language, traditions and support systems in pursuit of opportunity," she said. "Sometimes they become so focused on earning a future that they forget to experience their present."

For Kopacz, Bridge Ahead has transformed her own experience at Pitt - the student who once struggled to find community now spends her time helping others build it.

"It made me feel like I belong here even better," she said. "My experiences didn't only shape me, but they can also shape other students and make this journey easier for them."

Photography by Aimee Obidzinski