Two years ago Vira Sachenko, a second-year student at AUBG from Ukraine, accompanied her father on a business trip to Blagoevgrad, a little, charming Bulgarian city at the foot of the Rila and Pirin mountains. Wandering around the city, Vira noticed the AUBG Main Building, not for a moment imagining what a significant and substantial part of her life it would very soon become.
Vira had to strike a deal with her dad to let her apply to AUBG. Now, she cannot imagine studying at a regular Ukrainian university. One of her reasons: liberal arts education. “Before coming to AUBG it was just a sophisticated phrase I never cared to understand, but I really love the idea. This is the system that fits me best, and I believe that you should be able to choose and enjoy whatever you spend your four years of higher education on.” The best part of the liberal arts education, as Vira sees it, is the fact that you can do whatever interests you. “I do theater. And I love it,” she says. “I don't think I would have such an opportunity at some university here, in Ukraine.”
Vira is majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication and is also doing a Fine Arts minor. The overall expertise and knowledge of the professors at AUBG is another thing that impresses her. “Some of the professors are almost perfect,” she says. Vira often laughs when her friends cannot understand what it is like sending or receiving emails from your professors. “The distance beween professors and students is smaller at AUBG than at the Ukrainian universities,” she says.
Vira knew soon after she enrolled at AUBG that she had made the right choice: The place has a great atmosphere and is full of opportunities. “This is the university that teaches you best to get around in life even if you know nothing,” Vira says. Among the various opportunities AUBG offers, she thinks the most important one is the chance to “understand that you can if you learn and try.”
The best part about an AUBG education, though, is exactly the part that teaches you about life, Vira says. She believes she has learned some invaluable lessons. She says that she might still be only a second-year student, but she has already learned that “there are no miracles and no natural talent is a winner without hard work.”
Being at a place offering multiple options and fields for students to develop, Vira chose to dedicate herself to her passion – theater. AUBG might not have been the reason for Vira to discover her talent, but it certainly helped her develop it. She acted in “Faryatev's Fantasies,” a Russian play, and plans to do more Russian theater in the future. “Acting makes me feel complete and rehearsals make me feel alive,” Vira says.
Vira has not yet chosen a career path for herself, but she already knows AUBG has already prepared her for whatever she embarks on. “AUBG added a little more confidence to my leadership abilities, and, more importantly,” she says, “it taught me that if I want to be a leader, I have to be more prepared towards any situation than anyone else in the group.”