As senior Gavik Kuruppu’s time on UNI campus is winding down, he’ll cherish memories of being involved with International Student Promoters and Kappa Sigma and living in the dorms. But it is his title as a Coca-Cola ambassador — a position he calls “life-changing” — that he will miss most of all.
Kuruppu, a native of Sri Lanka, is the first Coca-Cola ambassador in the country to be an international student. Coca-Cola and UNI staff advocated for him to make sure he was able to take advantage of this unique opportunity.
“Marian at Coca-Cola, Kristi Marchesani in International Admissions and Lisa Riedle in the Department of Applied Engineering & Technical Management — those three human beings need to be given medals, and I will always owe them for the rest of my life,” he said. “I wouldn't be standing here today without the three of them.”
In this role, Kuruppu is the face of Coca-Cola on UNI’s campus, one of 150 ambassadors across the country. At universities with an agreement with co*ke, there is only one ambassador for the institution. When school is in session, Kuruppu regularly hosts tastings and markets co*ke products. During the summer, he travels to the World of Coca-Cola at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, and works with ambassadors from other universities across the country.
Kuruppu always knew he wanted to go to college outside his home country. Both his dad and older brother studied in the United States.
“Once I selected my country and narrowed that down, my thought process was where can I go that is financially efficient and educationally beneficial?” he said. “UNI was honestly the perfect pick for me because it's not too expensive, but you also get the equal opportunity that you can get if you go to a bigger school.”
Late one night in Sri Lanka, Kuruppu was filling out his UNI application. He found the phone number for Kristi Marchesani, associate director of international recruitment, and thought he would try calling her. To his amazement, she actually picked up and was able to help him through the application.
“That was a huge kind of ‘welcome’ moment,” he said. “Seeing that even the head of international admissions is willing to answer your phone call and give you the information that you need makes you feel important. That really sealed the deal for me.”
Kuruppu came to UNI in spring 2022. He moved into Noehren Hall where he met his now-wife who lived on the same floor. Instantly, he knew he’d made the right choice by enrolling at UNI.
“It just felt very homey,” he said. “I never had trouble settling in, even though it's halfway across the world. I always felt at home, and I always felt like I fit for some reason.”
Kuruppu quickly got involved with International Student Promoters, a group that promotes UNI to prospective international students. Seeing how outgoing he was, Marchesani instructed a person with a camera to follow him around UNI. The videos became a recurring segment. That summer, the videos expanded to showcase community events around the Cedar Valley.
“Kristi identifying that I had the potential to do something and then catering to that potential had a big, big impact,” he said.
These experiences got Kuruppu used to being on camera. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this was setting him up to take advantage of the Coca-Cola ambassadorship. Without the experience International Student Promoters provided him, he believes he may not have thrived in this role the way he has. He even won the Ambassadorship Summer Training MVP for making the most out of his experiences going to Atlanta for training.
During his trips to Atlanta, Kuruppu has gotten the opportunity to network with CEOs of various co*ke brands. These opportunities have inspired him to pursue his own entrepreneurial dreams.
“Those people give me the motivation to chase the American dream, because I genuinely believe in it from the bottom of my heart,” he said. “I think that if people work hard enough that you can actually get to where you want to go in this country.”
Kuruppu’s experiences creating content for social media drove him to declare graphic technology as a major in addition to technology management. Previously, he had been a threatre and business administration major. He intends to use experiences from all his majors to start a new venture in the Cedar Valley in the next few years.
“This city and this state — they’ve made me who I am today and given me everything that I have today,” he said. “So if I can give back and make this community in any way better, I want to do that."
