Introducing Nenad Apostoloski: AUBG's New Business Professor

Nenad Apostoloski is a new Business professor at AUBG. He finished his Ph.D. in Business Administration at the Central European University quite recently, and now he is here as a Balkan scholar, a position established in collaboration with OSUN (Open Society University Network).

 “I just received the diploma today after four years at CEU; I just got a degree in paper confirming that it wasn’t a totally wasteful life doing a Ph.D.,” he joked during the interview.

Before that, Apostoloski spent three years in New York, where he was part of another Ph.D. program, teaching undergraduate students two classes: “Fundamentals of Management” and “Strategy.” 

Apostoloski is currently teaching BUS101: Management in a Global Environment and BUS448: Strategic Management, both online. He spent the first week of classes in Blagoevgrad and taught in person, which he was pleased about. “Students seemed very bright and eager to learn,” he said.

Of course, virtual teaching comes with its challenges. For Apostolski, the biggest challenge at AUBG is engaging students in activities during online classes. It has been hard to organize classes to make it easy for students to break the communication barrier. However, the professor mentioned that there is a nice balance now with breakout rooms and other types of activities. 

“I even created discussion groups on Canvas for some of the students that are willing to communicate online, to just type a message they won’t talk about in class,” he added. His idea of class is for it to be very engaging, so he tries to include different types of exercises in the curriculum. 

“The assignments are based on the assumption that we should all be building this set of skills that could help us later on the job market,” he added.

When asked about whether he sees himself staying longer than the semester, he stated that he would consider AUBG as one of the potential universities in his future because he finds the community well-integrated with many opportunities to grow. 

Apostoloski added that the experience so far has been positive. He finds it refreshing that students are globally-oriented. “If they decide their careers outside of Bulgaria, this is the right place to be, I think,” he concluded.