Timur Martinez Smirnov

Name: Timur Martinez Smirnov '23 (he/him)

Email: trmart19@stlawu.edu

Hometown: Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico

Majors: Economics & Business

Off-Campus Study Program: London Fall 2021 & New York City Spring 2022

What was your favorite course you took off campus? Tasting Cultures in NYC

Tell us more about your off-campus study experience! My day-to-day varied. From Monday through Thursday, I’d go to work at Neuberger Berman in Midtown. However, in the evenings there were always events going on back at our student residence. During weekends we would go to Central Park, the movies, or even ice skating when the weather was nice. From going to a jazz performance to a hockey game, there was always time & encouragement for students to explore and immerse themselves in the city. On Friday’s I’d take two classes. The Director’s course: Tasting Cultures, where we would learn about different cuisines around the world and how they have evolved throughout time, including new fusions with other cuisines such as the genesis of NYC style pizza or Nikkei food (fusion between Japanese and Peruvian cuisines). The second class was a business management class that invited students to come up with a business idea and work on how to create a vision, mission, budget and pitch for a company. This class spurred a passion for entrepreneurship I did not know I had. The skills I learned I continue to exercise them on a very regular basis even after the completion of the program. From my internship, I was able to improve my Excel skills because I would constantly need to leverage excel to extract data and create charts that would assist the team. The skill I am proudest of and the biggest takeaway in terms of skill learning was the opportunity to learn how to use Bloomberg. I learned how to extract data from Bloomberg and measure market performances on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone studying off-campus or thinking about studying off-campus? Do not jump ahead of yourself and try to plan every detail. This way you'll leave room for surprises and new experiences that in the long-run will be great memories.

Ask me about! 

• STEM major/academic planning
• culture shock/adaptation
• interested but hesitant about studying off-campus