Katherine Zubovich looks back “very fondly” on the CERES program. Zubovich, who graduated in 2010, went on to do a PhD at the University of California Berkeley, and is now an assistant professor in the history department at the University at Buffalo - SUNY.
When Katherine came into the MA program, she was not at all interested in academia. Her career aspirations lay in law school and potential NGO work, but as she completed the coursework, she found that she really enjoyed research and writing. She particularly enjoyed working as a research assistant for Professor Susan Solomon.
Zubovich believes the CERES program is great because it takes two years to complete and provides students with a balance of professional experience with the internship component, as well as a scholarly environment at the University of Toronto and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. “This is a program that provides so many opportunities for students,” she said. Additionally, Zubovich found that the interdisciplinary nature of the program, such as the ability to take courses in history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, as well as the close regional focus, was a great benefit that allowed one to truly become an expert in the field of European and Russian Studies.
She also loved working with Professor Lynne Viola, a renowned scholar of Stalinist history. Katherine’s final MA project (which takes the place of a thesis at CERES) was about architectural preservation in St. Petersburg, which featured a Russian social movement of people who used performance art to protest the destruction of buildings. Zubovich says the research allowed her to spend a summer in Russia and “historicize her love for the city.”
Zubovich said she enjoyed the program because it offered practical skills, it didn’t just “groom people to apply for PhDs,” and had a strong sense of community. Even though everyone was working on different topics in different disciplines, they were all studying the same region.
Katherine recommends that graduate students use all the resources at their disposal at the University of Toronto, such as writing workshops, events, and library help, and ask as many people as possible for advice on their projects.