Born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Marina Komarova, MS Business Analytics ‘24, knew she wanted to get a business degree from a respected American university.
She had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Russia, which included a semester as an exchange student in Finland. George Mason had met all the criteria she was looking for—most notably a top business college in a prime location. Not yet confident in her English skills, Komarova entered through the INTO Mason program, which really helped her transition going to school in a new country.
Currently, Komarova is a business analyst at CakeBoxx Technologies, a company that designs and manufactures shipping containers for high-valued oversized types of cargo. Before accepting the position, she worked at the company as an intern while still studying at the Costello College of Business. Securing the internship was a critical milestone for her. Because of her status as an international student, Komarova found herself under increasing pressure to find a job position or risk leaving the country. After speaking with career services, attending multiple networking events, and refining her online searches, she found CakeBoxx. “At that point, they had this position that was called a supply chain business analyst intern,” she says. “It was honestly everything that I was looking for in my first internship because I have a background in supply chain, and I was studying business analytics.”
Komarova enjoys how flexible her job is and how it requires both statistics and interpersonal skills. “You need to know how to communicate with different kinds of people from different industries and how to actually put your ideas into words,” she says. Much of what she learned from her Costello business analytics program she was able to apply instantly to her job. “The knowledge I got from classes like marketing analytics predictions is helping me every day in my job. We have very customized solutions for different industries, so we need to do our marketing research and find out who can be our potential clients and how we can make them interested in our products.”
As an international student at George Mason, Komarova never felt out of place or like she did not belong. “My experience was great professors and university staff,” she says. “Everybody was very helpful and very welcoming.” She also thoroughly enjoyed the campus culture outside of the classroom and how the university was constantly holding events not only for academic interests and professional development but also for fun social gatherings. “The social stuff actually helped me a lot,” she says. “I was worried a lot that I wouldn’t feel like I belong here, but that was not the case.”
Marina Komarova has come a long way in a short amount of time. “It’s been a crazy journey with some ups and downs, like from the moment when I was freaking out that that I wouldn’t be able to secure a job to the point when I graduated,” she says. After overcoming uncertainty and bettering herself, she is thriving in a new country and in her career.