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Anzelika Belotelova

When talent recruiters come looking for you.

By Andy Gregory

On a video call from a busy cafe in London, Anzelika Belotelova isn’t shy to admit this: The economics master’s at NYU Abu Dhabi is among her life’s most challenging accomplishments.

“It was a very intense immersion back into education,” says Belotelova, who joined the graduate school program at age 28 and today works as a transformation manager back at home in the UK where she advises on mergers and acquisitions and policies in decision-making. 

Belotelova says recruiters started reaching out on LinkedIn in the few weeks before graduating from NYUAD and, by the time the program finished, she had a full-time job lined up.

Anzelika Belotelova is a graduate of the inaugural MSc in Economics at NYU Abu Dhabi, 2021.

Belotelova’s journey to NYUAD started serendipitously. Several years after finishing her undergrad at Southampton University, she started toying with the idea of going back to school to study behavioral economics. A friend who’s a researcher told her about the new Master of Science in Economics program at NYUAD. 

“The knowledge you absorb is tremendous and you want to score as high as possible,” which for Belotelova meant a lot of studying day and night. On top of that, she did her first semester online from the UK so classes were at the crack of dawn, as early as 5am. Supportive professors and fellow students helped her stay motivated.

The knowledge you absorb is tremendous and you want to score as high as possible.

Anzelika Belotelova, Class of 2021

NYUAD “enables you to evaluate things critically,” she says. Now that she’s familiar with advanced economic theories, it’s easier to open a science paper and go through it. The program helps students like Belotelova develop analytical and problem-solving skills that can transfer across a range of industries.

“It has been interesting to see how the program is being shaped,” she adds. “Unlike a bachelor’s it’s very much experimental.”