Prof. Momtchil Karpouzanov on Teaching Students to Have a Standpoint

December 21, 2022 Frantsiska Kutevska
Prof. Momtchil Karpouzanov on Teaching Students to Have a Standpoint

Professor Momtchil Karpouzanov teaches Microeconomics and Financial Accounting at the AUBG but he also holds the position of Academic Director of Graduate Programs at AUBG. Having graduated from Paul Cezanne Universite Aix-Marseille III, he has taught in France, Cyprus, and Bulgaria. 

Listen to the interview with Professor Karpouzanov to hear more about his teaching philosophy, his perceptions of politics, economics, and philosophy, and which are the seven languages he speaks. 

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Teaching 

“It’s the sensation of just opening a bit the door for all of you, young people, and seeing you push it and going through.” 

This is what Professor Karpouzanov loves the most about teaching students.  

He believes that the role of the professor is to provide students with the materials to form their own opinions.  

Students are young adults who are given tools and empowered to try using those tools with all the possible mistakes and that’s good, that’s fine. It’s a good place to make mistakes in a safe environment, the safest possible environment. In a way, we are the punching balls on which you train how to use those tools, how to sharpen your knives, how to prepare arguments, and argue and defend your standpoint, and articulate your opinion. This is where your professors know they have done their job when you have your opinion which is obviously based on what has been discussed in class, what you have read, and not on the opinion you have heard on social media.” 

He further adds that students need to go beyond what their professors have taught them. 

“It would be absolutely wrong and contrary to the very spirit of science if we wanted to encapsulate your knowledge in a smaller volume than what we as professors have. You have to go beyond this, you have to be better than us, you have to know more than we do.” 

AUBG Executive MBA 

His main occupation within the university is not teaching but the position of Academic Director of Graduate Programs. One of the initiatives he highlighted was the international business trip that is mandatory for the EMBA students.

“It started as an opportunity to provide state-of-the-art management skills and knowledge to leading managers in Europe…Despite all the political changes, we didn’t have all those opportunities of working and studying abroad. We needed all these skill sets to be brought in Bulgaria,” says Professor Karpouzanov about the business trip. 

One of his activities within the EMBA is to organize an international business trip for the graduate students. Among their destinations are London, Vienna, and the US. Recently, the locations of the trip have gotten closer to Bulgaria or the Balkan region as an attempt to get to know the business environment within the neighboring countries. 

“We want to know how our neighbors do, what they are good at, and if you don’t know your neighbors, how do you know where you live.” 

Languages 

Professor Karpouzanov speaks seven languages: Bulgarian, French, English, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish. He believes that in order to learn the language, you need to submerge in the environment of that language.  

“You don’t speak the language only. You have to have this cultural knowledge. You may not even speak the language that well, but you have to know the field society in a non-verbal manner.” 

He has a tip for how to learn a language. 

“Watch TV as the language there is very standardized…Because the language is so standardized and controlled, you have those ready-made sentences on which you can start building…your linguistic path.”