Liudmila & Ognyan

Dear Mercatorians,

Your new RAs speaking (well, writing)! We are Liudmila Tarabashkina and Ognyan Seizov, and we were officially knighted on February 6th, 2009! In the following paragraphs you can read a little bit more about us, about our goals and motivations, and about our intentions to make Mercator College an even better home for all of us :)

When we first heard of the open RA position, we applied at once. The decision was easy because we wanted and still want to enrich Mercator students’ lives, to help you adapt faster to the new environment and to make that transition smoother. We were particularly drawn to Mercator College because of its art profile which is important to us and of course to students’ social life. We also felt reasonably well prepared for the challenge…

To start with, cultural diversity was not new to us when we first joined Jacobs: both of us had experienced a private, English-speaking, international institution before coming here. Liudmila received her Bachelor’s degree in Jurisprudence from the American University of Central Asia, a high-ranking international educational center based in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), graduating as her class’ valedictorian. Ognyan’s first international educational experience came at an even earlier time when he joined the American College of Sofia (Bulgaria) for his high school studies, which he completed with honors. Apart from academic success, these first experiences enriched us with many friends from different parts of the world, a marked sense of community involvement through a vibrant set of extracurricular and voluntary activities, and a knack for communicating to people from other cultures with friendliness, respect, and tact. After experiencing interculturality in our home cities, Jacobs University (then – IUB) was a natural continuation of our academic careers. Over the course of our studies (MA for Liudmila and both BA and MA for Ognyan), we dived further into internationality through a variety of research topics approached from every major social science’s viewpoint and through long in- and out-of-class debates with peers from around the globe. The last six to nine years have, therefore, made us well acquainted with the way English-language international institutions work.

We believe we also fit Mercator College’s marked arts profile. Liudmila is an active member of the Pottery Club and the Paper Studio. Her works regularly appear at campus exhibits and she frequently attends local and international art exhibitions and museums. Ognyan has been involved with the university’s music scene from the first week he set foot on campus. His experience ranges from co-organizing and performing in large-scale musical theater productions such as The Wall (2004) and Rent (2006) to playing keyboards and/or bass guitar in a range of bands, uniting musicians from diverse cultures and playing in different genres. We both firmly believe in the chief importance of art and music, but also of other extracurricular activities for students’ healthy and proper lifestyle and development, especially under the notorious pressure of the three-year Bachelor’s track. Hence, we will actively encourage students to participate in university events, to find an extracurricular activity they are passionate about and to pursue it.  

So, enough about us! We are both looking forward to getting to know each and every one of you and to cooperate with you to continue making Mercator College a place worthy of the title “home”!

(Text by Liudmila Tarabashkina and Ognyan Seizov)