Advice from alumni: Lidia Roman

Russian alumna, Lidia Roman, who graduated from EF Academy Torbay in 2012.  After her time in the UK, she went on to study International Relations in Switzerland at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. She combined her studies with internships within human rights and at the United Nation’s Economic Commission. Read more about her in the interview below.

How did you hear about EF Academy and why did you decide to attend?

I learned about EF Academy when I was traveling for short language courses in London and Australia. After Sydney, I heard about a competition through which one could win the Bertil Hult scholarship to EF Academy. I won on a regional level and this started the thought process of actually going abroad to study. After a lot of discussions with my parents, I decided to go for it because I knew that I wanted to study international relations so it made sense to me to go abroad for high school.

What’s your favorite memory from EF Academy?

I really loved my last host family in Torbay, the host mother is called Janis Hogarth. We would have dinners since she is an excellent cook and just talk about everything – I felt very lucky to have that. I also miss my classes, teachers, my classmates and the unique atmosphere of being a student in an international school.

What is one thing that you learned from EF Academy that you found valuable for university? For work life? For your personal life?

I learned a lot of things, both big and small:

Smile and be nice to strangers: I know that it sounds like a very obvious thing but it didn’t come natural to me as a Russian. However, I learned in the UK that a smile can get you far. When I went back to Russia, everything seemed very grey and gloomy to me. However, now I live in accordance with the words from the song by Louis Armstrong : “When you’re smiling, keep on smiling, the whole world smiles with you. When you’re laughing, when you’re laughing, the sun comes shining through…”

Be flexible and tolerant of other cultures: There were so many people of different nationalities and backgrounds at EF Academy, so I learned how to accept that diversity. I guess it taught me some kind of flexibility. An example of this was my friendship with a good friend from Norway, Eva Midtgaard. We were assigned to be roommates and at the beginning, I had a hard time communicating with her; there were certain behaviors and words that I could not accept but which were normal in Scandinavian culture. In summary, I think that my experience at EF Academy helped me reshape myself. I became more accepting and tolerant as a person; today there are no cultures that can shock me. I guess my view of what is “normal” simply changed. This has been useful both at university and also in my current everyday life.

What university did you go to afterwards? What did you study and why?

I went on to a three-year program in International Relations at the Geneva School of Diplomacy, a private school in Switzerland that was founded by a diplomat, Colum de Sales Murphy. Because of the founder, the school is very well-connected. I was mainly studying subjects such as history, historical philosophy and economics. I believe that Geneva is one of the best places to study international relations because it is such an international city with more than 50 percent of the population coming from outside Switzerland. I really love the country and my program, because it was very much focused on practical experiences. We had to complete a mandatory internship and we got to go abroad for study trips, for example, to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and meet a lot of people at different conferences.

What is the biggest difference between high school and university?

I felt that going from high school to university was very easy. My biggest cultural shock occurred when I went to the UK from Russia, as the education systems are very different.

What did you do now?

I was looking for new challenges after my internship at the UN so now I am working as a business development manager at a Russian online payment company. Most of our customers are based in different countries so my English skills come in handy on a regular basis. However, I have been forced to learn a lot of new things as well since it is an IT company and it is very business-focused. I enjoy this a lot but I am a person who is interested in everything. I will probably change again before I decide what to do with the rest of my life. For example, I would like to do some field work with the Red Cross. In parallel with my full-time job me, and my friend – whom I met eight years ago when I first went to a short language course with EF – are starting a project. We want to start a club for kids to develop their ten types of intelligence and of course to teach them foreign languages.

In general, I feel that life is too short and it is up to ourselves to make the most of it. In the long-term, I would like to work with International Relations. When coming to EF Academy, I discovered the abundance of new opportunities. This view was enforced in Geneva but the starting point was definitely at EF Academy.

What did you do before you started your current job?

My first internship was a six-month, part-time position with a non-profit organization that worked with documentation of human rights. It is the more technical part of human rights; including building websites and working with content management system. I really liked it but I felt that human rights from the perspective of sitting at the office desk wasn’t for me. I wanted to go in the field and see the concrete results of my work. For example, I attended many human rights conferences and I always found that it was too much talking while I prefer more hands-on work. I would be happier making one person smile than working on huge human rights cases even though it would impact more people’s lives. After this experience, I decided that my dream is to work for countries in need with the Red Cross.

After that, I started working at the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Europe; first part time and then full time. I found that it was much more challenging to get the job than actually working there. The UN mostly recruits people with Master’s Degrees and only five percent of the hires had only a Bachelor’s Degree. I knew this and that is why I decided to go to different conferences and while there I managed to impress my future tutors. I was mainly working with the Transport Commission, which is working on the Eurasian transport link that is supposed to become the new silk road between Europe and Asia. Our aim was to build up more cooperation. Concretely, I did a lot of translations and research projects as well as helping my supervisor with administrative work. I liked my internship at the UN a great deal because it was inspiring, challenging and I got to meet a lot of people. However, I also think internships with the UN is a lot about what you make of it. For example, I went on my own to other divisions, like the UN Trade Commission, to ask if I could help them just so that I could learn more.

What tips do you have to get internships?

Make sure you know which area and industry you want to go into: I knew I wanted to work for the Economic Commission. That made it easier for me to target my search and choose which conferences to attend.

Network: To be honest, my internships, my other projects I am working on and even my current job have all come through networking and that is something I am actually proud of. Networking is definitely an art – and something I’m always trying to get better at. In the beginning, I was quite bad at it because I found it to be very intimidating and challenging. However, I worked on it and just put myself out there which has been very beneficial for me. When networking, try to channel your inner journalist. For example, I was going to different conferences like TEDX. Instead of talking to the speakers after the presentations, I always tried to contact them before the conference because it was much easier to get contact later when we were in the same place. When I talk to people, I try to discover their passion as the entry point of conversation and I don’t stick to the usual questions. Another practical tip is to send follow-up emails but I only do this when I feel naturally interested and not considering future benefits.

Tips for current students who want to study what you study?

When you study international relations, you need to know it is hard work. You will need to do a Master’s and later on a PhD program, for example, the UN and different commissions require tremendous skills and they are very demanding. You need to identify an area where you want to go in depth. That is why I believe networking is good –  it is very good for broadening your mind. I mostly learned by talking with people. For international relations, research skills are really the key.

Do you keep in touch with your EF Academy classmates?

We still keep in touch. I am living with a Kazakh classmate from EF Academy. My other friend from Norway is coming to visit me very soon here in Moscow.

What final tips would you give to current students?

Find out what is interesting for you and make sure to research your university options properly: I choose University of Edinburgh as my firm choice and Birmingham University as my insurance choice because I thought those two courses would be the best fit for me. However, I later realized that I wanted to live in London and then I hadn’t chosen any school in London. Thus, I can really recommend thinking through what is important for you.

Do your research: I learned this the hard way when I realized that one could not study a Masters at a public university after graduating from a private university in Switzerland. Also, make sure to talk to graduates from the university that you are interested in attending. I did that and it was really valuable.

Enjoy the life at EF Academy:  Don’t worry too much and take the time to relax. I was worrying too much during my time EF Academy and it killed me, although I realized now that I didn’t have very big problems.

Short questions:

Name: Lidia Roman

Age: 23

Nationality: Russian

How many languages do you speak? Russian, English, French

EF Academy campus: EF Academy Torbay

Graduation years: 2012

Program: A-Levels (economics, sociology, math and law)

Residence or host family: Host family and lived a while with friends

Favorite subject: Economics – when I started at EF Academy, I was really bad and almost failed my first exam but my teacher taught me well.

Favorite teacher: I loved all the teachers, they even managed to make math fun!

 Peter Welsby and Andy Scott – Economics teachers

Favorite club / society: Me with my friends organized a Dance Club

Which is the next country you want to visit? I want to travel around CIS countries and to live a bit in South-East Asia

Who to interview next:

Katerina Kuznetsova –  Very inspiring, she is doing a lot of things in the world

Aigerim Bugibayeva – A great friend of mine