What have we learned so far?

Hi, guys. Mitko from FJMC here. First of all, let me apologize for the delay. We know we haven’t been that active, but things have been kinda’ crazy around here. We have so many projects on our hands, we may have overlooked this one, but this is going to change, I promise. We have very high expectations for this blog and the cooperation between the two universities. The chat we had was great, and I’m hoping we will be able to do something like that again.

We watched the movie you guys made and found it fascinating to see you and your first impressions of us. It was lots of fun. We will make one ourselves, I hope very soon, and we will send it to you of course, so I guess you can look forward to that:)

So, let’s get to the important stuff. We are hoping to get a clearer picture of the education in America and vice versa. This post is going to shed some light on the education Sofia University provides its students, the disciplines we  take up, and basically the things we learn around here.

The first thing you need to know about Bulgarian universities is that the students cannot choose what subjects they study. They are previously set by the Ministry of Education and The University itself.

In the first year of our higher education we studied various disciplines, such as Media Law, Sociology, Social Psychology, History of Bulgarian Journalism, Public Relations Theory and History, Advertising Basics, Economics, Informational Technologies and many others. Some of them proved to be very useful in that we actually learned and understood how the Public Relations business in Bulgaria works. Many of us began working for various Bulgarian media, as early as the second semester of their first year in the university.

Here is a series of brief descriptions of some of the subjects we took up, during our first year at The Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication:

“Public Relations Theory and History” was one of our most important subjects, as it gave us the opportunity to study under Professor Zdravko Raikov – the only Bulgarian Public Relations Professor and author of many books, such as “PR - The Technology of Success” and “The Corporate Citizen”. The professor did a marvelous job, introducing us to the origins of PR, and a big part of the field’s pioneers and their techniques. He also introduced us to the basic principles and rules of the business, providing us with the ethics of the whole thing. Through his many connections, prof. Raikov was able to bring many of Bulgaria’s acclaimed PR practitioners in the classroom, who, in turn, were able to explain how things work, not just in theory, but in practice. This is how, many of us were able to establish connections, and eventually get work.

Zdravko Raikov

“Advertising Basics” was another subject, which proved to be extremely useful. Here, we studied under Professor Hristo Kaftanjiev, who is a Doctor of Philological studies, author of many books and a frequent guest lecturer in many of Europe’s finest universities. He is also a member of the jury of The New York Festivals. Here, we were presented with various advertising techniques, as well as the different types of advertising. We analysed some of the groundbreaking advertisements and commercials from the past decades. Professor Kaftandjiev covered a lot of ground, so we had a large quantity of information to acquire, but our work was made easy, mainly because of the professor’s wonderful sense of humor. As well as a theoretical part, the final exam included an original advertisement, made by each student in the course.

Hristo Kaftandjiev

“Media Law” was probably one of the hardest, but also most rewarding courses we took, during our first semester in FJMC. Here, our lecturer was Professor Nely Ognyanova. She is one of the key figures in the Bulgarian media legislation over the years after 1989, when our country became a democracy. She was a member of the Bulgarian electronic media and telecommunications regulators, and a Doctor in Political Science, associate professor and head of the European Studies chair at Sofia University. As a teacher, she proved to be firm, but fair. Her subject of study was, in my mind, without a doubt, the most interesting and compelling I have studied, during my (not that long) academical career. And I’m not just saying that. In this course, we struggled with the study of the European media legislation, as well as parts of the American. We went through some of the groundbreaking cases in both of them, analyzing them to the fullest extent.

Nelly Ognyanova

“History of Bulgarian Journalism” was taught by  Zdravka Konstantinova, who is a Doctor of History. Here we learned about the birth of Bulgarian Journalism, which fascinatingly happened even before our country was restored after five centuries of Ottoman rule. Journalism had a great contribution to the process of The National Awakening as well as The Bulgarian Enlightenment, which ultimately resulted in the liberation of our country from Turkish slavery. Many great Bulgarian journalists and intellectuals mobilized their forces to bring the spirit of the new times as well as shed light in Europe and world on the atrocities that were inflicted upon Bulgarians during the Ottoman rule.

Last, but not least are the subjects of Sociology and Social Psychology. As you may know, the concept of Public Relations is largely based on the ideas and methods of both of these sciences, so these were the fields, in which we had most hours in class.

Our Sociology lecturer was associate professor Svetlozar Kirilov, with whom we delved into the depths of one of the most amazing sciences that humanity has developed. We had extensive lectures as well as many hours of exercises, which helped us understand the foundations, on which Public Relations is laid.

In Social Psychology we had enormous luck and to this day we thank the faculty for presenting us with the opportunity to study Social Psychology under one of the field’s masters – Professor Mincho Draganov – a Doctor of Sociological Sciences, author of many works, and one of the Bulgarian legends in the field, who has taught classes all over the world (including a lot of time, spent in universities across The United States) for decades. It was a true pleasure listening to the professor’s extensive meditations on the beautiful discipline he taught, and I believe we all learned a lot about Social Psychology and how it influenced the creation of the practice of Public Relations.

Well, I think that about covers most of the major points. I, of course, realize that this stuff is very basic and vague, and it probably differs a lot from how things work over there. I think it would be best to post your questions as comments. Rado and I will try to answer them as best we can. We are also hoping to learn about your education and classes and try to draw a parallel between the two systems. Hope to hear from you soon!

Mitko