Prior to business school, Katya Buchneva (USC Marshall, ‘21) spent her career in the media industry in Russia and Europe, but decided to move from the production side to the business side and felt the MBA degree was the best next step in her career. Buchneva landed at the USC Marshall School of Business, and selected it for it’s expertise in the Entertainment industry. During our interview, Bucheva shared her story about her transition abroad to Los Angeles, adjusting to the American culture in business school, and how USC Marshall has helped her work toward a career in the Entertainment Industry in the United States.
MBASchooled: What did you do prior to business school, and why did you choose to come to business school?
Before business school, I had worked as a media producer for 10 years. I started my career in Moscow, Russia, with a production company that was making original scripted and non-scripted TV content, as well as some localized versions of global TV formats, for one of the national broadcasters. After that I moved to the news production, as I was always passionate about media freedom. That’s why I joined Reuters, a leading global agency operating worldwide. I became a core member of a small team that was launching from scratch a new regional B2B video-service of ready-to-air reports, distributed in dozens of countries with Russian-speaking audiences. After three years, one of our clients, US-sponsored RFE/RL, decided to launch a new 24/7 TV channel, Current Time, with the headquarters in Prague and they invited me to help to build news production.
Once again I had a chance to join the process on a very early stage, before the launch, when we were just creating the newsroom workflows and communication processes. As a senior editor/producer, I was in charge of the content strategy and the full-cycle production – from planning coverage and assigning tasks to reporters to managing live air broadcast in the control room. It was a truly exciting time and I was lucky to get involved in many aspects of our organization’s work, such as collaboration with programming and marketing departments, the Innovation Lab, the learning and development team, as well as IT, digital archives and the business development department. Seeing how all those parts come together to ensure a smooth work of such a complicated mechanism as our company, engendered my interest in a deeper understanding of the business side of the media and entertainment industry.
MBASchooled: After you decided to attend business school, what was your timeline like leading up to business school? What did you do leading up to coming to school, and when did you arrive on campus?
After getting accepted and putting down a deposit, I wanted to keep working as long as possible, so I moved to Los Angeles only in the late July. In between, I learnt some Excel and read a few great books on economics (my undergraduate major was in communications, so I felt a need to catch up with MBA peers with more traditional backgrounds), I also read the pre-MBA resources provided by Marshall professors. But to be honest, until the very departure from Prague, I was totally consumed by work and just tried to finish all the projects, so the serious studying started only in Los Angeles. Media is a very addictive field to work in.
MBASchooled: As an international student, what was your experience like transitioning to business school, and a new country?
As an international student, of course, I noticed some basic life-style differences. But Marshall was very helpful with the transition, making it easy to open a US bank account, get medical insurance through the school, etc. I was very happy to learn that my course has over 35% of international students! Even though just a few of us are from Europe and I am the only Russian, I felt welcomed and valued for my different background. Yes, some American things may have felt unusual, like for example, a tailgate tradition. But it was always more of an exciting cultural discovery, than an obstacle.
I also have learnt more about myself, reflecting on how I fit the new society. For instance, I’ve realized that Russian straightforwardness is really a thing and I’m afraid I may have seemed too pushy or too direct a few times, especially in comparison with my super nice Asian classmates. But it’s great to learn it early on to have a chance to adjust before entering the workforce. In general, being in such a diverse environment is a great opportunity to reflect on your own identity as learning about different cultures inevitably leads us to learning more about ourselves.
MBASchooled: As an international student, what resources, programs, experiences were most helpful to you in getting comfortable and acclimated with the MBA experience at Marshall?
Second-year students were the greatest resource. Marshall provides all the necessary support in the form of workshops, special advisors in the career center, a database of employers providing visa sponsorships, etc. And it is very helpful indeed. But for me personally it was very important to see that other international students are doing so great. When we just arrived in the US and had so much uncertainty in every aspect of our life, it was extremely reassuring to just meet second-year students, who by that time already had fantastic internships, won prestigious business case competitions, held leadership positions on campus, and so on. And they were very open to share their experience and help us navigate the new environment. Having such role models next to you is just priceless.
MBASchooled: During your first year, was your favorite experience at USC Marshall during your first year, and why?
There were a lot of wonderful first times, shared with my friends, like a trip to New York, where we visited major media and entertainment companies, or my first ever business competition by Warner Bros-Deloitte that we won, or a heart-touching experience of teaching Los Angeles schoolkids some finance literacy for a charity program. But perhaps the most memorable experience was a trip to Sundance festival with our Business of Entertainment Association. It was a real adventure! Since the festival was extremely busy and just packed with cool events and world premieres, we all felt camaraderie working as a team: booking tickets for one another or just giving away extras, sharing information on events, sneaking friends to closed parties and so on. It was a lot of fun!
MBASchooled: During your first year, recruiting for internships is a huge priority. How did you go about tackling the recruiting process?
Entertainment hiring, even for internships, often happens just in time, which means that you should be ready to catch the right opportunity, whenever it arises. I would recommend focusing on networking and the development of industry knowledge. Luckily, our Business of Entertainment Association was a great resource for both.
We had an opportunity to meet some amazing alumni through a series of Lunch & Learn events and networking gatherings, which was helpful to get some industry insights and learn more about different career paths in entertainment. Overall, just being within the company of like-minded passionate people of BEA encouraged everyone to stay on top of the entertainment news and have non-stop discussions on all the developments in the industry.
I got my internship offer relatively early for the entertainment industry, at the beginning of March, before the national emergency and the full-scale COVID-19 crisis. I was supposed to join Walt Disney Studios, which looked like a great opportunity to marry my experience as a producer with newly acquired knowledge in finance and data analysis. But unfortunately, Disney was hit very hard by the pandemic, with the parks closed and theatrical premieres postponed. All internships, including mine, were canceled.
It was tough to start recruiting once again – now in the completely changed landscape, where almost all major firms froze hiring. Luckily, thanks to the Trojan network, I got a second chance and have started a strategy consulting project for Variety Business Intelligence. I’ll be helping them to identify international markets that have significant growth opportunities for digital content platforms like Netflix and Disney+, the rare winners of the current lockdown.
MBASchooled: Given the shift to a virtual MBA Experience as a result of COVID-19, what was the last part of your year like?
USC reacted to the threat pretty early, moving classes and even exams online before the spring break, so we didn’t have any case of the infection on-campus. The initial switch wasn’t without a few technical glitches, but overall it went pretty smoothly and I applaud the professors who managed to turn the situation into an advantage. For example, professor Kyle Mayer, who teaches Global Strategy and amazing elective on Alliances and Cooperative Strategy, quickly discovered how to enrich discussions with chat and immediate polls, which made classes even more interactive.
The biggest disruption was the cancellation of our international trips, which are usually a part of the Global Context of Business course, also known as PRIME. My group was supposed to fly to Tokyo in mid-May to finalize on the site the consulting project for a corporate client. Other groups had Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, London and Madrid among their destinations. Needless to say, that all of the trips were cancelled. We had a choice to either take the class without the trip or to postpone the course until the next year. I chose the first option and have been working with our Japanese clients remotely, which is still a great learning experience.
MBASchooled: How did you adjust to the virtual academic experience? What worked for you, and what was challenging?
The Zoom fatigue is real, and when the class is more of a lecture than a discussion, I always turn off my camera. Being able to walk around the house and grab a cold drink, while listening was definitely a plus for some classes. But most of the courses require active participation and that’s where it gets more complicated. The hardest part for me was discipline, and it really goes down to a professor’s ability to effectively manage a virtual crowd and lead a focused discussion. It worked significantly better in two cases: 1) when there were two professors or at least a professor and TA, who could admit people from a waiting room, mute them, manage the chat, etc,; 2) when a professor initiated the discussion on the online communication norms in the beginning of the course, so everyone got a clear understanding what’s appropriate for the virtual class and what’s not.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for how prospective MBA students should prepare for going to business school, especially considering these uncertain times?
Honest self-reflection on your personal goals and priorities may be the best thing you can do before diving into a very high-paced intellectually-demanding program. And it’s especially true now, when we all got reminded about the fragility of what we used to perceive as constants of our lives. Slowing down and staying-at-home gave us all a chance to reassess what is really important to us and what is not.
Remember this in your MBA journey. Once you’re in the program, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the opportunities or to lose your direction just because so many peers are following a different, more popular way. Finding your own North star may help you to avoid confusion in the midst of the program, when you will have lots of immediate challenges to solve and much less time for strategic thinking.
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