What experiences led you to select finance as your career
Uploaded by kaidith on Mar 24, 2006
What experiences led you to select finance as your career or What Interested You In Finance
My interest in business dates back to the age of 10, when I first became aware of the tough economic situation in Russia. I could not understand why the authorities were unable to issue more money and simply give it to the people. While a deep economic crisis was raging in the country, I was playing a successful entrepreneur selling books to my Mom in my toy bookstore. I could easily manage fake money unlike adults in a real world where true money was devaluating rapidly. As a child, I was excited to succeed in managing those bills, which later had spilled over into my confidence in studying business and, eventually, to a desire to make Russia a better place to live.
As I started my academic career, I was surprised to discover that our life is actually managed by invisible market mechanisms. At the pre-university programs at the Higher School of Economics and the State University of Management in Moscow, I learned that government would not issue additional money because of inflation and unemployment. Having got a sense of “thinking like an economist”, I went on further and inquired million of questions such as “how individual firms function”, “why ones succeed while others fail” or “why people make certain choices”. I became more and more interested in business processes and felt a desire to get involved in it myself, so I applied for a major in business and management at Moscow University Touro.
At the university, I have discovered the whole breadth of business applications and how they reach to every aspect of our lives. Besides theoretical knowledge, I learned how important leadership, teamwork and strategic thinking are. It was interesting to think on the application of these concepts in Russia, where competitive market relations are very young and unstable.
To look at business from an international perspective, I decided to spend the last summer studying outside of Russia. The Summer School at the University of Chicago helped me figure out the particular area of business I would like to explore. Working in a team project devoted to financial analysis helped me discover the language and the core foundation of businesses – finance. Considering that Russia is becoming a more important player on the global market, I found international finance especially interesting. Upon my...