Boian Venev

Bulgaria, Class of 2018

Did MGIMO meet your initial expectations?

MGIMO did meet my expectations. I had the opportunity to meet a lot of international students. The course of study was very spanerse and engaging. In addition, I got the chance to live in Moscow and travel a lot around Russia.

What did you like and dislike about your education and MGIMO in general?

I liked the classes because they were very informative, covering an extremely broad area of knowledge. Every single class always brought something new, which made the curriculum exciting. I learned a lot of things which I didn’t know before. What I did not like about some classes was the lack of opportunities for a free discussion when I felt the need for such discussion.

Were the knowledge and skills you acquired at MGIMO useful?

Knowledge I received at MGIMO was very useful. It opened my eyes to many things that I did not care about before. Also, we went through an intense training in foreign languages. The standard of that training is very high at MGIMO, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Is there any difference between education at MGIMO and in your home country?

In my home country, education could be more lenient, students would engage more in discussion, not so much focusing on absorbing information. At MGIMO, you consume plenty of knowledge, but that happens to the detriment of discussion, game exercises, or round tables.

Boian Venev was interviewed by Nikita Vozianov (Class of 2019) in March 2019