October 17, 2020
Maftunakhon Tokhirova is a junior student of Anthropology department. She came to study at AUCA from Tashkent. Maftunakhon is one of the most active students of the faculty. She recently won the AUCA Alumni Scholarship. She was a member of the student clubs AIESEC and Enactus in the first two years. Previously, she applied for an exchange program and was successfully accepted to study at BARD College, USA. Due to the pandemic, the flights have been canceled and now Maftunakhon is studying remotely. We talked with her about her student life and learned about her best memories at AUCA.
-What do you like about the university? What are your best memories here?
-The first year was very productive for me. I met many graduates and successful people from Central Asia. Thanks to these meetings, I am very active and purposeful. I surely can say that the best experience AUCA has given is meetings with successful people, who motivated me to make my goals come true. In the summer of 2019, I won a trip and the opportunity to participate in conferences in Nepal, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Moreover, I took part in field research in Alai and Issyk-Kul regions in 2019.
-Why did you decide to study here?
-I accidentally decided to apply to AUCA. My friend advised me to take the exam at AUCA. Initially, I applied to three universities, and failed them, thus I decided to prepare for three additional universities within a month. As a result, I entered three universities. I decided to study at AUCA, the decision was not easy for me, since I did not know anything about Bishkek. I wanted to study Forensic Anthropology. And AUCA was the only university in the Central Asia to have a faculty of anthropology. I love AUCA because it provides us with many opportunities and it depends only on the student whether s/he will use them.
-Due to the pandemic, you are studying exchange at BARD College online. How is it going?
-Yes, I am studying remotely on the exchange program “Bard Globalization and International Affairs”. The study is productive and interesting regardless of the fact that the lessons are online. Moreover, I am doing a remote internship at Jafton.com IT company in New York, USA.
At AUCA, a student has the opportunity to improve not only professional knowledge and skills, but also leadership skills. In my case, AUCA has become a leadership school. Here, I get better and set myself big goals and objectives.
I wish all our readers good health and family well-being during the pandemic!