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Tamara Ayrapetova

2 min read
26 October 2012 16:10
Tamara is an International Management student from Russia working at McKinsey in Prague. She shares her experiences about what it's like to work full-time and study at Prague College.

It is late in the afternoon, and Tamara returns from a day at McKinsey & Company in Prague (where she works in the IT Hub as a Video Conference Coordinator) to take her evening classes at Prague College. As a full-time student and full-time employee, Tamara still finds time to meet with us for an interview. 

Tamara moved to the Czech Republic from Russia six years ago, and began her secondary education at  English College, a private secondary school in Prague. Upon graduating she began her undergraduate studies in Business at Prague College, and now she is just about to finish her BA (Hons) in International Management.

Achieving merit and distinction grades in almost all modules has made Tamara one of the best performing students in the entire programme. How does she manage to work and study full-time while still being at the top of her classes as well as being involved in the school’s extra curricular activities, such as the Prague College Humanities Society and the Student Council?

Tamara explains that her commitment to all of these activities is influenced by her deep interest in these areas. The motivation comes from all of the events that have been arranged, and from teamwork with the Prague College staff and student body. She admits that sometimes this requires a lot of self-discipline and time management, but she says that these are the skills that she has also acquired during her studies at Prague College when she was often asked to work on many different projects at the same time.

Tamara’s future plan is to continue working at McKinsey and to grow professionally, including a possibly of transferring to other locations with the company. The main challenge is keeping yourself updated on all of the developments the company brings about. It is a very diverse working environment: every day you meet people from totally different cultural backgrounds, and at the end of the day the challenge is to reach your goal by building relationships and understanding each other. As an employee, Tamara finds the environment very structured, but at the same time quite flexible. All of the decisions made inside the company are a collective choice, which makes the experience at McKinsey even more valuable and enjoyable.

In her free time, Tamara enjoys art and painting.

Update: Tamara finished her BA (Hons) International Management with a "first" and is now on the MSc postgraduate programme with us in 2014.