Education: the Big Challenge

Education is always a big challenge. I graduated from my first University almost 6 years ago. For now, I have 4 degrees and I am in the process of getting numbers 5 and 6 now. I graduated Magna cum Laude as a Bachelor in Business Administration, gained a degree in Marketing and Brand Management, took course on Corporate Finance and Investment Management from London School of Economics, and graduated from Moscow Producer’s school. I graduated from all of them at a different times, always having a different background, because my education was key to my professional promotions.  I was in need of different skills to be promoted, and all of them opened different opportunities for my future.

During the time I was looking to continue my education in Miami, I found an amazing option – a dual Master Degree Program through both Miami Ad School and Florida International University focusing in Global Strategic Communication from the angle of creativity and advertising. Both are my biggest passions and are from the spheres of my professional interest.

My curiosity brought me here to understand how they are all connected to each other: How the creative approach may strategically influence communications in global society where we live now at the era of mobile technologies without any barriers or borders, online.

The most questionable moment for me was wondering how I can do two Masters at the same time – one in traditional academic school, another in top creative school.

I remember my first day in MAS, the school’s creator Ron Seichrist gave a speech about the school’s alumni and the brands they are working for. He also revealed the top advertising awards his students get.

I was impressed — About the school? No! I was impressed by the school’s spirit, where you can bring all your crazy ideas and they can come true; you can bring your dog here or drink a beer during the class. After classic academic education, it looked ridiculous! That was my first lesson: not to judge people’s professionalism by their behavior or appearance.

My first class at FIU added even more to my new “not judging” approach. We were about 20 people in the class and we were all from different cultures, countries, backgrounds. That was a time I realized that I have to keep my eyes and ears open to find the new truth of communication, which I was not even thinking about before.

Now, I am few months from graduation and I feel that I gained thousands of new skills from technical and execution to communication theories, which help me with  understanding my customers’ behavior, getting better insight, and creating new advertising and brand communication campaigns for my clients.

Now I feel that I am ready to go back to Russia and to develop and give a competitive edge to my own communication agency and start working with clients internationally because I am sure that the significant learning. I have now will allow me to go global and to become global myself as a brand.

Remember the words of Steve Jobs, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish”. There is always a way to improve. Always study, because your knowledge needs an update once in a while. It is impossible to know everything; there is always something you do not know. That’s why you have to go here to find the new you.