Khagan Karimov is a 5th year undergraduate student at the Process Automation Engineering Department of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS). He has received an offer from two US universities for a full scholarship PhD program. Khagan has chosen the University of Utah, which awarded him a $122,320 scholarship. At this university, he will study the Computer Science specialty in the Cybersecurity direction.
Khagan entered BHOS in 2017 with 695 points. He currently works as a penetration tester for the Irish company Cyrex. Khagan takes interest in philosophy and chess. He even writes articles on philosophy and has a Youtube channel.
Below is an interview in which he shared his success story.
- Khagan, why did you decide to study in the USA and how have you achieved this success?
- I wanted to specialize in Cybersecurity, so I first started looking for a country that provides the best education in this area. I made multiple inquires and found that the United States is the leading country in cybersecurity education. I chose the United States because this country offers the greatest opportunities in this area.
- What role did Baku Higher Oil School play in your success?
- I am majoring in Process Automation Engineering, but the knowledge gained at BHOS was enough for me to switch to such a competitive specialty as Cybersecurity. I became convinced of this during interviews at the universities where I had applied. The false impression that the professor had about me because of difference in the specialties evaporated in the first minutes of the conversation. After the long interview, the professor told me that I had been admitted to the university. I owe all this to the teaching staff of Baku Higher Oil School and the knowledge that I received here.
- By what criteria did you choose the US university?
- Admission to a US university is a tedious process, both financially and in terms of the final choice of a university. It was not easy to make a choice between the universities to which I had been admitted. The conformity of the research topic with my interests, the predominance of theoretical or practical studies, and the reputation of the scientific adviser were factors that influenced my final decision. It is for these reasons that I turned down an offer I received from a higher ranked university.
