Nikolai was born in one of the former USSR countries in Uzbek SSR (nowadays Uzbekistan) but has been living for most of his life in Russia. He was a RELP student in the 2014-2015 academic year and he wants to pursue a MA in Economics at CEU.
“I have had a strong interest in Economics for more than ten years. In 2005, I enrolled in the Department of Business Administration at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, where I studied for four years. The RGPP program is very useful for my preparation for applying for and doing a Master’s degree in Economics at CEU or other well-known international universities and that is why I see the program as a great opportunity for my academic development and my future career.
After graduating from the university, I worked for some time in the economic and financial sector. But I always wanted to upgrade my qualification by doing a Master’s degree in Economics in a prestigious university abroad, but my knowledge of English was not very good. Fortunately, in 2013 I was delighted to learn about the Roma English Language Program (RELP) at CEU, which helps young and ambitious Roma like me to learn English. I applied for entrance in RELP 2014/15 and I was accepted. Now my English is much better than one year ago, and being part of RGPP means I will be able to improve it further thanks to the classes which the program provides and I will be happy to take the tutoring classes in Economics offered by the program.
This academic year, I am interested in auditing some courses of the Department of Economics, such as the "Labor Economics" and "Macroeconomics". This will help me to improve my theoretical knowledge in economics in general and, furthermore, deepen understanding of unemployment and discrimination on labor market, as I have a special interest in studying how the low education and discrimination of the Roma in Russia lead to higher unemployment of the Roma compared to the unemployment of other nationalities in Russia. This study, I think will be useful for CEU and also for the society and the Roma minority because I want to show that the society can benefit a lot from educated and employed Roma. I also believe that, one day, after developing strong managerial skills I will implement some of my ideas and start my own business that will provide jobs to the Roma people in my community.”