How did TUMO unlock “an unfamiliar world”, change Grigory Artazyan’s life, and lead him to Minerva, one of the best universities in the world?
20-year-old Grigor is a computer science student at Minerva University in the United States and has already studied at the Minerva campuses in South Korea and Taiwan, now he’s in India. In 2014, when Grigory was only 11 years old, he learned about TUMO from his friends, despite not knowing what to expect, he spent several months waiting for his 12th birthday to register. “After that, life changed. I started attending with friends, and the day of the week when we had to come to TUMO became our favorite. TUMO unlocked an unfamiliar world for me,” says Grigory.

New learning areas, failures, and successful moments

Grigory studied at Physmath, and he says that TUMO was a place for him to break away from subjects like physics and mathematics. Here, he was more interested in learning areas like graphic design and writing, while the filmmaking workshops and labs were his favorite.

“TUMO taught me to learn from failure and gather strength from my setbacks from a young age,” reflects Grigory. He remembers that he had failed the level two filmmaking workshop and had to wait six months to try again. During these six months, Grigory was encouraged by workshop leaders and coaches. Six months later, Grigory was in the third level of the filmmaking workshop. In 2019, he had already created the film “Clay Man” with his friends in Marie Ketring’s learning lab, which won the second place of the Vahé and Lucie Award.

From TUMO learning labs to Minerva University

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, TUMO’s learning labs were held online for a while. During that time, Grigory participated in Dylan and Sophia Moore’s learning lab, where he learned how to create interactive stories using AI, but also helped translate the lab for other TUMOians. It was then that he started thinking about continuing his education abroad. Grigory met Dylan and Sofia in person for the first time while he was in the US for an exchange program and he celebrated Thanksgiving at their house.

It was Dylan and Sophia who helped Grigory apply to a number of U.S. universities, by telling him his tips and tricks for applications. “I applied to about thirty universities and was accepted to several, but I chose Minerva, because the educational program allows me to travel around the world every semester, discover new countries, learn new things, study different subjects, and explore the world,” Grigory tells us.
Grigory’s next destination is Argentina. He doesn’t know what he’ll be up to after studying in eight countries yet, but he’s sure he wants to return to Armenia and contribute to the development of tech education.