“Enjoy your time at AUCA while you have such a chance because after graduation you will miss AUCA”

October 23, 2018

Nurkalyy Sooronbayev graduated from American University of Central Asia in 2018. He studied Business Administration and did his minor in International Business Law. During 2015-2016 academic year he served as a head of the finance committee in the Student Senate. For the last three years, he was the head of Kyrgyz Delegation. While studying at AUCA he and his friends a couple of times opened their own business in the field of textiles and fast food.

This year Nurkalyy moved in San Francisco, the USA to do the Masters degree in International Business. In the following interview, Nurkalyy tell about his experience and give good advice to AUCA students.

- Can you tell about the business school you are studying?

Hult International Business School is a private institution that was founded in 1964. It has campuses in London, San Francisco, Dubai, Boston, New York City, and Shanghai. I chose to study in San Francisco campus because of the Silicon Valley that is a home to a large number of technologically innovative companies including Apple, Google, Facebook etc. At Hult, you can meet students of more than 100 different nationalities. Therefore, Hult is a Global Business School that brings together people, cultures, and innovative ideas from around the world.

- What kind of similarities and differences do you see comparing AUCA and Hult?

The very first difference that I have noticed was that at Hult students are given ready schedule while at AUCA I enjoyed the opportunity to make my own schedule. The second difference is that all students are divided into small teams of 5-6 people and all from different countries. For example, my teammates are from Germany, Italy, China, and India. Thirdly, most assignments are specifically designed for teamwork.

- Can you tell about the most memorable and lovely moments during the last two months?

When I arrived to San Francisco I met people from Kyrgyzstan who have lived here for many years. They helped me a lot to adapt to the foreign country. I will especially remember how we all got together and cooked Kyrgyz dishes and created a homely atmosphere like in Kyrgyzstan. Thereby homesickness, even if for a short time but disappeared

- Were there any challenges? if yes, how did you overcome them?

Masters in International Business at Hult is an intense program and it lasts for only 1 year. Students study 5 days a week, sometimes 7 hours a day while in other universities postgraduate students study 2-3 days only. Because the program is intense students are given a large amount of information each day which they have to process through their brains before the next class. Because of the intensity, it seemed to me that I did not have enough time to do all the tasks. To overcome this challenge, I began to improve my time management and I can see progress.

Since I came to the USA with my friend and groupmate from AUCA Kanat Osmonov everything else was pretty easy for me because we always supported each other in difficult situations. In addition, AUCA alumni Azat Baatyrbekov graduated from Hult just before our arrival and he helped us with the housing, adaptation and many other things.

- What would you recommend to AUCA students?

Dear AUCA students, I would recommend you to enjoy your time at AUCA while you have such a chance because after graduation you will miss AUCA. Make your student life fun and interesting. Join clubs, apply for conferences, exchanges, do internships, make friends and do not forget to study:) If you do not procrastinate and do everything on time you will enjoy studying and have a good GPA. And if you are going to do your master’s degree a good GPA is important.  And the last advice for the future, learn not only foreign languages but also programming languages because this is something you really need in the future. Thank you very much. Good luck!

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