M.A., Advertising & PR (2008)

I was born in the Ukraine, and finished my B.A. in Economics and M.A. in Journalism there. I had an interest in advertising, but there was no opportunity for advanced study in my homeland.

I had practical experience. I was the advertising manager for a multinational exporter in the Ukraine. Now I wanted to focus on my studies in Communication—especially research on video games and advertising.

I made a long-distance decision, choosing Marquette based on their website and their faculty research. The professors who taught me were just brilliant! I was excited to have the opportunity to work with them. They helped me combine things people usually don’t combine: video games and communications theory.

It started in my Qualitative Research Methods class. For our group paper, I suggested writing about a video game created at USC about Darfur. This game helps people understand the concept of genocide, the concept of the struggles in Darfur. We ended up presenting our paper at the national conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.