Psychology Week: Meet Nina Bagdasarova

March 11, 2013

#PSY

"I chose psychology after my father, Aron Brudny, who was the founder of the Psychologists’ Community in Kyrgyzstan in the 70s. My mother was also a psychologist for a long time. In those days there were no psychology departments in Kyrgyzstan, which is why I went to Moscow and graduated from the Pedagogical Psychology Department of the Moscow Pedagogical University.  It was a very interesting department in 80s. A lot of psychologists who had conflicts with official academic structures taught not at Moscow State University, but at ours, MPU. Studying in Moscow was an important experience for me.  I worked with my research advisor, Nikolai Veraksa, on the psychology of thinking and comprehension, and, in 1997, I defended my doctoral dissertation in Moscow.

I started to work at AUCA in 2001, and it has already been more than 10 years since my first day. In my opinion, AUCA is not only one of the best universities in Kyrgyzstan, but in Central Asia as well.  I love my students above all else, along with the opportunity to avoid the typical Soviet education scheme (a lecture with a seminar).

Most of my courses are based on students’ participation, something you can’t organize in every university. AUCA students are more active during class and show independence and creativity when studying.

My own research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of psychology, sociology, political science and mass communications. I like the idea of attracting students and faculty from various disciplines to a learning space in which we can share our opinions and experiences to develop new methods and tools in a certain field. That is why I love my courses, such as “Psychology of Mass Communication” and “Visual Literacy”.

Psychology is an important underpinning for the development of academic and business spheres.  It provides us with a wide view of different things, while remaining a conservative disciplineclosely related to natural science.

Stepping away from the discipline of psychology and looking at AUCA as a whole, I would like to say that this universityis where every student has theopportunity to receive a multi-disciplinary education, making it a global university."

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