“It's really important to decide what you're passionate about so you know how to start walking toward what your goals are going to be in life.”
Alexandria Mancuso hasn’t known a moment’s rest since she began her education at Florida State University. The first-generation college student, who is graduating this summer with a bachelor’s degree in computer criminology, has volunteered more than 300 hours with the Tallahassee Police Department’s Cadet Program. In addition, she served in three executive board positions with the Southern Scholarship Foundation, all while maintaining Dean’s List academic standing for the past three years.
“I have to have an agenda book, and I have to schedule everything so it’s easily dispersed,” she said with a laugh, but it’s apparent through her lengthy list of accomplishments and the benevolent way she speaks of her work that humanitarianism and leadership are in her soul.
Mancuso came to Florida State from Tallahassee’s James S. Rickards High School. With full-ride scholarships from her achievements in Rickards’ International Baccalaureate program, she hit the ground running, driven to excel in the field of criminal justice.
“It’s really important to decide what you’re passionate about so you know how to start walking forward to what your goals are going to be in life,” Mancuso said. She embraced her college experience as the time in her life where she would find out who she wanted to be, and she says that that is what has made her successful.
Mancuso decided, after beginning her classes in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, to focus her studies in computer criminology. She found a passion for the policing and prevention of fraud, identity theft, human trafficking and piracy.
“With crimes like Internet sex trafficking and music piracy, I think that people don’t realize the extent to which these crimes affect our economy and society, or understand the grave impact on the victims,” Mancuso said. “And I’m a huge proponent of stopping them from occurring.”
Mancuso, who was a finalist for the President’s Humanitarian of the Year Award at Florida State during her senior year, is interning with the Florida attorney general’s office on the prevention of Medicaid fraud this summer. Upon completion of the program, she hopes to be hired full time.
Produced by the offices of Information Technology Services, the Provost, Student Affairs, Undergraduate Studies and University Communications.