WM: Hi Cati, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself? Did the IB prepare you enough for university? Did you have any di culties in your rst year academically?
 

CG: In the rst 5 years of my education I moved around quite a bit internationally, therefore after settling in at AISB for seven years I wanted to move somewhere new but also just as cosmopolitan as our school. I attended university at the London School of Economics completing a BSc in Accounting and Finance. The IB and the whole IBO programme prepared me very well for university. I had a wide array of di erent study, presentation, and interaction skills that were very useful at university. Even so, my time at university was much more di cult than what I had done in the IB, but in contrast to students of other educational backgrounds, I often felt more comfortable with the workload. From the aspect of impromptu speaking and other oral presentations, it was apparent that former IB students were much more prepared and e ective. The main difficulties in my rst year at university came from the limited teaching guidance we were given.

Apart from the lecture notes, a textbook, and weekly problem sets, it was largely independent study. In the IB, at AISB, we were given many tools for support that we had to choose from, here I had to build my own.

WM: How do you feel the course you studied at LSE will aid you in following your chosen path in life? And how does it integrate into today's societal needs?

CG: Being mixed with MarsThe BSc in Accounting and Finance is a starting point in understanding the financial needs of society around us. The next step is an accounting accreditation that will allow me to give an educated opinion in the matter. In Romania, there is more need for understanding the full extent of nancial tools available for the betterment of society.

WM: What should students expect in their rst year of university? Did you accommodate quickly to university life?

CG: The thing I found most shocking in my rst year was the diversity of the student body and how di erently they approached situations. Coming from an international school, I was very familiar and comfortable with a more global, multicultural or even cosmopolitan thinking, which was not the case with many of my classmates and this created confusion. It was important to quickly understand where everyone else was coming from and acknowledge that I would not be able to make friends with everyone, but that there will always be people you can
have at least something in common with. I adapted and accommodated fairly quickly to university life. A piece of advice that helped me a lot was, acknowledging that what was important and worked for someone would not necessarily work for me or be important to me.

WM: What are your plans for the foreseeable future?

CG: In October, I started a graduate program at Deloitte London in Audit where I am working towards an international accounting certi cation. My plan is to get that quali cation and then re-evaluate where I stand and consider taking a Masters Degree in a tangential field. 


Read the entire WORLD Magazine Winter 2017 edition here.