Arina Aladysheva

Arina wrote a very personal and convincing motivation letter. She started it by describing an interview that she held with an HIV-positive refugee from Ukraine. During this interview, she heard a first-hand account of what it means to be a true outcast. This had a major impact on her, and she explained that this made her academic studies on stigma and trauma even more urgent.

Arina aims to study PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and then, after completing her studies at University College Groningen, begin the Master’s degree programme in Cognitive Neurosciences, after which she would like to do a PhD. During her pitch, she explained that rape often occurs during armed conflicts (wars) and that in her research, she would like to better understand the mental health consequences of this for both the victims (suffering from PTSD) as well as the perpetrators. Arina demonstrated that she is not only highly motivated, but has also embedded herself in her topic and has original ideas to this end.

Arina started her academic trajectory in Russia, where she was working towards a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising and PR at the Higher School of Economics (average mark of 8.9). Here, she won many prizes, wrote two articles about marginalized groups for the Novaya Gazeta, actively volunteered, was a tutor for the School Intellectual and worked as a content creator and PR manager for various companies. In addition, she worked as a freelance market researcher for start-ups.

In 2022, after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Arina considered it logical to move to the Netherlands and started her degree programme at University College Groningen, majoring in Science. She has obtained incredibly high marks for this programme too, has taken extra-curricular course units in the social and legal sciences in particular (41 ECTS credit points, all completed with very high marks), participated in the AI in Health Care winter school, is learning Dutch, and is taking the Honours Programme. She has been able to study in various places, both within the UG and UMCG (University College Groningen, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences/Psychology department, UMCG/BSCS), as well as at the Chinese University in Hong Kong. She is currently busy writing her thesis on fMRI findings in patients with ME/chronic fatigue syndrome after an effort test. Arina is also highly involved in all sorts of volunteering and protesting activities outside her studies, such as actions against the Russian war in Ukraine and the situation in Iran. This all demonstrates that Arina is not only an excellent but also highly engaged student.