From A War Zone To Oxford’s Hottest Degree Program: One Ukrainian Student’s Journey

Laurence Wainwright teaching the inaugural cohort of Oxford’s Mac in Sustainabikitym Enterprise, and the Environment. File photo

THE PARADOX OF BUSINESS & SUSTAINABILITY

Anastasiia Zagoruichyk knew she wanted to be that someone, but didn’t know exactly how she could gain the knowledge, skills, and connections she’d need. Arriving in the UK, she conducted research for the climate website Carbon Brief. When she heard of a scholarship Oxford University was offering for Ukrainian students directly impacted by the war, Zagoruichyk applied and won the scholarship.

Selecting a graduate program was a no-brainer. In 2021, Oxford had launched a new master’s program dedicated to the study of sustainable development and solutions to climate change, but through the lens of business and finance markets. “For better or for worse,” says Wainwright, the professor who is director of the program, “these institutions have been a driving force, a significant part of the reason that we find ourselves in this mess — but paradoxically, are also the way out of it.”

The MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment was Oxford’s most applied-to graduate program in the fall of 2021, despite having only around 25 seats available. More than 700 applied to the current cohort that is made up of 22 students — and with the first round of applications for next year closing earlier this month, Wainwright says it appears his program once again received the most applications of any graduate program at Oxford.

LEARNING FROM ‘THE OTHER SIDE’

Zagoruichyk is now in her second month of the 12-month MSEE. Though she will likely return to the government sector when she returns to Ukraine, not private enterprise, she wanted to gain insight into the motives and needs of businesses when it comes to reducing carbon emissions and other sustainable changes vital to stopping the climate crisis. She says she’s learning about the system “from the other side.” Looking at sustainability through a business lens, Zagoruichyk is already thinking about the complex issues involved in fighting climate change in new ways and coming up with new approaches to addressing these problems.

Wainwright says that in an effort to “try and throw a metaphorical bucket of cold water on the students’ head every week,” the program brings in guest speakers from major companies or NGOs on all sides of the issues to speak to students about “what’s going on out there in industry, what are the nuances that we can’t see from the classroom that we actually need to know.” He constantly reminds his students that, despite the widespread support for sustainability they may see at Oxford, making a sustainable economy a reality will be a hard fight.

“That’s why we have the practitioners come in and read [the students] the riot act and say, ‘Hey, look, I just came from a big meeting, we cut our sustainability budget and this is why,’” he says, adding, “… things are not all sunshine and butterflies.”

A WARRIOR FOR UKRAINE’S GREEN RECOVERY

Wainwright says students like Zagoruichyk already recognize these realities because they have real-world experience in the field of sustainability and can easily connect what they’re being taught in class to past experiences.

“Anastasiia can actually say, ‘Okay, well, I’m able to make sense of this and apply this because actually, I’ve got my hands dirty doing this before and actually understand what this means,’” he says, explaining that Zagoruichyk and students who have outside experience can share this knowledge with other students to help them understand how the theories and models they’re learning apply outside of the classroom.

Over a dozen nationalities are represented in the small cohort, Wainwright says. “The different backgrounds that they have and the different intentions they have for the future just mean that the vibrancy and dynamic nature of the conversations are so rich, and everyone’s got something that they’re excited about,” he says.

Learning from peers has been one of the most valuable aspects of the program, Zagoruichyk says. It has made her even more determined to secure a sustainable, carbon-neutral future for Ukraine, something she is optimistic can be accomplished.

“We hear each other’s thoughts and learn from each other’s backgrounds because we have a quite diverse group,” she says. “It’s very hard to say what’s going to be next [for me],” she adds, “but in the long term, it definitely will be active participation in Ukraine’s green recovery.”

DON’T MISS OXFORD HIT BY TSUNAMI OF APPS TO NEW SUSTAINABILITY MASTER’S and WHAT IT’S LIKE TO RUN A B-SCHOOL IN A WAR ZONE

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