Stockholm School of Economics in Riga Students' Magazine

Anna Aleksandrova graduated from SSE Riga in 2004. Afterwards, she obtained her MSc from Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, worked at UBS Investment Bank in London for two years, spent eight months unemployed exploring Greece, and then returned to full-time employment in the UK. Anna currently works for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London and keeps a record of her work and life experiences in a regularly updated blog http://anjci.blogspot.com/.

I spent about an hour today trying to remember names of the subjects that I studied at SSE Riga. Given that I graduated six years ago (amazing how time flies), the idea was doomed from the start. I eventually cheated by peeping into my old electronic files and browsing through endless lists of folders. Organisation & Management to Business Psychology (we really studied that?) and Macroeconomics to that famous Financial Economics – every course unearthed a swirl of memories in my mind. It is hard to believe I once actually studied all that clever stuff.

I have changed a couple of jobs since graduating. After spending two years in investment banking, I finally settled at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London a year ago – where I am currently an Analyst in Power & Energy Utilities Banking team. Which SSE Riga courses do I find the most useful for work? It is difficult to say. Even the most glorified courses (read: Financial Economics) are not necessarily the ones you will find the most useful for the job. On the contrary, the seemingly unexciting courses can prove to be of great use.

Take Financial Accounting, for example. My sole moment of real excitement during that course was when our Swedish Professor revealed that the course book was "written by a Norwegian" but was nevertheless "still quite good". The rest of the time I remember waddling through the lectures, half-asleep – somewhat because of the previous night's revision, but mostly because of general boredom of the subject. Accounting was never designed to inspire for heroic deeds, after all. Ironically, it is in fact accounting that I now use in my job every day, five days a week. As an Analyst, I spend a lot of time building financial models – which involves working with corporate accounts, analyzing them, putting them into Excel and making projections. I think I will not surprise anyone by saying that Balance Sheets are designed to balance, and Heaven only knows how much time is often spent to achieve that. If you aspire to work in finance, though, the ability to understand and make sense of the corporate accounts cannot be emphasized enough.

Another SSE Riga course I remember with a warm glow in my heart is Advanced English. I will never forget the training we had on business writing there. A notable part of my job is writing reports for various internal bodies to grant approval to projects under consideration. The ability to structure one's thoughts and clearly present them on paper is extremely useful at work – and was well coached during my times at SSE Riga.

Finally, the course which I find extremely helpful – if not for my everyday job, but for understanding what affects my work and the country on a higher level – is, without doubt, Macroeconomics. While I no longer spend time drawing up charts with all kinds of drama going on along the axis, I still roughly remember what GDP is made of, what the difference between the nominal and real prices is and what the consequences of a currency devaluation would be. In other words, everything one needs to know!

Not forgetting to hold everything else constant, of course.

Anna Aleksandrova

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In light of approaching Graduation, we decided to advise Y3s which summaries and compendiums they could browse before their job interviews :). And Y1s and Y2s can learn more about how to efficiently allocate studying and partying and what should be studied more attentively. We asked 64 graduates to share their opinion on what subjects were the mostuseful for them. Enjoy!

1. Financial Economics

2. Accounting and Finance

3. Financial Accounting

4. Management Accounting and Finance

5. Macroeconomics

6. Microeconomics

7. Organization and Management

8. Economic Anthropology

9. English in an Academic Context

10.Economic Statistics

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Alumni say...

“The most useful of them all [subjects]is partying, allowing to build a greatnetwork with decision makersthroughout the Baltic States :)”

“When working in Consulting, I had to domore financial modeling so FE and IF wasvery useful; however, in the current positionthe job requires solid knowledge of FinancialAccounting. FA is a basis for very many jobsin this world...”

“I have worked in IT since Year 3. I wouldsay that SSER courses mostly shaped mythinking in general rather than standing outin particular with relation to my work. In IT,the courses I remembered most often werethose related to organizations and people,respectively, office politics :)”

“Working as a strategic planner foradvertising agency DDB Latvia. Researchand consumer behavior related subjects aswell as entrepreneurship subjects have beenmost relevant to my current work.”“The answer mostly depends on further

career path.”

“Learned to study hard!”

“Not sure what exact course/subject it was under, but I have found “stakeholder analysis” to be of immense value, especially in consulting and business process analysis. Simple concept, but very valuable. Another valuable concept is “real options”, from Financial Economics. Applicable in all fields of life, not just finance-related.”