PART ONE: Dr. Oleg Petrenko, Oklahoma State PhD in Management Alum, talks about his PhD experience

My name is Oleg Petrenko and I'm an associate professor of strategy at the University of Arkansas. I got my undergraduate from University of Central Oklahoma, I did my MBA there as well, and my graduate degree I got a PhD in management from Oklahoma State University.

My experience at Oklahoma State been extremely positive and I've been very fortunate to come in at a very good time where I had a lot of support from the students who were just leaving the program. One of the big things that really made me feel at home and made me feel comfortable at Stillwater, was the support from other students. Really they set a great example for several of us in my cohort, as far as what to do. They also told us what not to do, which was which was very helpful as well. So that was you know the culture of the department, being extremely helpful, and this is very unique to Stillwater because I've been to other institutions where, you know, the culture was not present. I didn't really realize how fortunate I was until later in my career, where I saw that it's not always that way. The second thing too, I always felt at Stillwater that the faculty really treated us as colleagues rather than just students. That helped us a lot in terms of you know, the faculty being accessible. That we could knock on the faculty door and have a meeting with them or conversation. There was also a big part of the success in the program that I felt that there was support, both from the current students as well as from the faculty.

Couple things so I'm an international student, so there was one concern when I first thought about coming to Stillwater. You're in Oklahoma and are there a lot of international presence? Is there a lot of international presence? What I learned is that yeah, there are quite a few International students and I I felt very welcome. I never had any bad experiences again not being from Stillwater, not being from Oklahoma. So that was very nice and the international office has been really great. Also if you look at the faculty, there's quite a few faculty that are international and that was great. Again, being exposed to that kind of diversity is always nice. 

Overall I say, you know one of the best thing about Stillwater was that it really allowed me to study well. It's a nice town you don't get a lot of traffic. You don't get a lot of distractions and it's a really good atmosphere to be a student. I sometimes I was studying in little cafes, sometimes I would study here on campus, sometimes I would study at home and I always felt safe comfortable. I saw this culture of knowledge around me and there was that was great. 

At the same time living in big cities, I appreciate kind of the small compact nature of Stillwater. That it took me 10 minutes to get to class. Unless there is a game, you don't really have traffic. So those things again, they really helped me you know,  be successful and kind of focused in the program.

Also you know when we wanted to get exposed to you know different things, you have Tulsa, you have Oklahoma City, which is pretty close. So it was kind of nice to be able to go somewhere on the weekend without having to drive life too long. So overall, I was very very happy in Stillwater. The thing that really surprised me though to be honest was I never expected to miss Stillwater. Because you know you spent five years, you do the grad work and you just want to get out and then once I did I actually did miss Stillwater. So every now and then I can come back, and visit and I see some of the faculty and I have some friends in the town. So, it holds a very dear place in my heart. I really enjoyed my time there.