Staff Interview with Anna Cherentsova

What led your path towards interning and further work with Best Programs?

Honestly, being a child raised in Soviet Union, I was keen on seeing the world since very young age. The schooling style was rather disciplinary and way too academic, and the idea of learning through practice that I picked from my first foreign language textbooks became my guiding light.

I had a good ear for languages and a hard working attitude, so I easily got enrolled in a student work and travel program in the US. It helped me collect money on further traveling and at the same time turned my focus to searching summer work in my professional area rather than seasonal jobs, to be able to develop skills that I truly need.

This is when I found Best Programs and went to do my Spanish internship in Marketing for a language school. It just turned out that the head and founder of Best, Jill Arcaro, mentioned to me an open position in their Madrid office that I was happy to take on. Years later, we found each other on LinkedIn, and in 2012 I started as a Best Programs representative in Russia.

Can you tell us about your experience interning in web translation and marketing?

In the summer of 2005, I had my last year of high school ahead and was considering different career strategies. A Master of Science in Speech Technology was a priority, but that only promised a full time position in the office for the rest of my life. I felt like I would be more efficient working with people and applying my technical knowledge in favor of some large international project which I fancied to be an emotional and communicational part of.

Thanks to my fluency in foreign languages, I was able to grow in International Marketing and Sales, and then get back to my area in Science in a new role. This alternative scenario worked just fine after I completed my internship in Madrid,as a web translator and marketing specialist. It is a common practice in Best that clients choose three areas of expertise. Mine were Linguistics and Speech/Marketing/Web mastering, according to what I had studied before.

The perfect combination of the three was a position in the Language club (“Club de Espanol”) where I got to administer the Ru version of their web and promote the school in the Russian market. As a bonus offered by the company, I was invited to take the advanced Spanish language course for free after hours. I felt a friendly attitude from the team I worked with, and together with my flatmate I explored Madrid cultural and nightlife under their caring eyes.

We went to one-day trips outside the city and even managed a trip to Barcelona and Granada!!  The three months flew by, leaving warmest memories, and by then I already felt at ease with Spanish and had my first web translation in my portfolio. The marketing research I did during my internship provided me with a database of contacts for advertising of our Programs in Spain.

And the last but not the least, my resume was shining with international experience! I got responses from big name companies and before graduation had a position in my area of science, with a company selling Speech tech products to Spain and Latin America. When staying at home with kids, I did marketing and translation remotely for them, and would probably have proceeded to their sales department, if not for switching to Best Programs local development.

What makes Best Programs the best?

To me, it is a general question towards the attitude we have developed in BEST, not specifically about our Russian branch. Having spent a while living and working in Tallinn, Estonia, I would emphasize that even inside the small world of Europe, when people have no difficulty going for a study or an internship between countries, and plenty of providers work on broadening students’ choices, we remain a desired source of summer and year-round programs and a service preferred by many.

The reason should be our individualized approach making all our clients’ professional ambitions possible. Having experience with all sorts of enterprises, from private businesses to huge international corporations, we have something to recommend for a candidate in search of a specific company, a certain shift in career, or on the contrary, willing to have a small family-style office as a placement. Each time we decide on an individual placement according to one's profile, thus being able to match the current needs of a company with a particular request from a student.

Why is it important to travel and experience new cultures? What does meaningful travel mean to you?

If we take a look at the historical background of most prosperous societies, we will find travel between the biographic lines of most outstanding people, leaders, and discoverers. A brain capable to process practical experience from living abroad has to deal with a lot of information: perceive, identify, compare, analyze. Our identities become stronger when we merge into alien mentality, find ourselves in specific frames of stereotypes, and have to take into account deep underlying aspects of culture, attitudes, and beliefs of people.

Not to mention that all changes stimulate us to think and act, aesthetic impressions inspire, new language keeps us concentrated, and good food makes us work on our diet and feel healthier. All this refers to a type of person open to these discoveries and looking for something new to happen, this is why as program providers we underline that mature and self-motivated students will get the best of their internship or volunteering.

Still, for those who feel stressed, we try to provide support and advice, encourage group activities with language schools and other interns to smoothen the immersion stage. Learning to adapt is also an advantageous skill.

How do you integrate your experience interning with Best Programs into the work you do today?

My personal life and work style has been enormously affected by having lived and worked in Spain and with the Spanish, as well as in the US and France. All those different details like daily and corporate communication, relationships in and outside the office, specific codes of success that one can read from mere appearance of a person with a different mentality—everything contributes into building new milestones for business in Russia.

We are still learning from our Western neighbors to create an enjoyable team atmosphere, truly cooperating within projects and embracing the talents of the young.

Describe a typical day/week of your work as Russia representative.

In Best, we do a great amount of work remotely from a portable workplace or a cell phone. We translate the same philosophy to our interns: dream work goes along with a dream life, and there is time for everything if we aim at it. We communicate, research, and sometimes improvise to personalize companies and interns’ needs to make a perfect match. Being virtually present at any time or day would not be possible if we did not truly care about our interns. The best word to describe my working day would be ‘integration’: being a Skype call away makes my everyday duties compatible with active lifestyle, travel, and family.

All along, on site events and meetings with interns and companies become a great emotional source. We hold orientation meetings at the properties of our affiliate language schools or at the hallways of interns’ accommodation sites, thus making it easier for our program participants to get in touch with landlords and teachers and have detailed discussions at all points.

The same happens in companies’ offices, but at this stage we leave communication in the hands of the two interacting parties while we monitor the state of things through feedback and evaluation. We are always on our interns’ side, but as we state it in our policy, there is no hand holding. We encourage our students towards independent attitudes and initiative under a supportive yet by-standing supervision. In the end, this is what we are here for.

What hopes do you have for the future of Best programs is Russia?

I believe I share with all my colleagues and clients a beautiful dream of a world full of celebration of diversity. For the rest of the world, Russia seems a bit wild exotic piece of land associating with painful political aspects and a bit weird mentality. I sincerely hope that through developing international educational and business interaction we will grow a generation of open-minded high-qualified professionals to build a basis for mutual understanding and trust. Whenever Best has a chance to contribute into growing sympathy towards my country, or a more hospitable attitude in my society, I virtually get my piece of cake.