Dmitry Dobrovolskiy, Class of 2018, pursues a non-conventional academic trajectory. While double majoring in Economics and Political Science at NYU Abu Dhabi, he is also soon to receive a law degree from Yugra State University in Russia. Having taken the American LSAT this fall, Dobrovolskiy now aspires to apply to law schools in the United States to eventually become a lawyer.

In an interview with The Gazelle, Dobrovolskiy explains his reasons for wanting to pursue two degrees simultaneously and how he managed to do so. He also shares some of the challenges he faced and how he overcame them.

DD: It’s a four-year bachelor’s degree in law called Bachelor of Laws at Yugra State University, a small state school in Russia. I was able to pursue the degree while being at NYUAD as it was a distant degree program. I could turn in the assignments online and take the exams back in Russia during the winter and summer breaks.

DD: From very early on, I wanted to become a lawyer, but I couldn’t really major in law at NYUAD. Not only because there wasn’t a law major offered but also because I was concerned that I’m not a native English speaker. How can I be a lawyer whose main job is his arguments and effective use of words? Also, by the time I applied to NYUAD, its first class [had] just graduated, so I wasn’t completely sure what my experiences would be here. So, I was considering if I should just go to Russian law school instead. With that dilemma, I postponed the decision-making and just applied to NYUAD as its application deadline was earlier than the Russian ones. But after the Candidate Weekend, I was fairly confident I really wanted to be in this place. At the same time, I did quite well on the Russian exams and found a distant degree program at Yugra. I finally decided to pursue both Russian and NYUAD degrees out of the belief that they would broaden my options regarding job prospects. If I wanted to work in Russia, it would be good to have a Russian degree. And pursuing the NYUAD degree would give me a chance to shoot for the [U.S.] American law schools, which would allow me to work pretty much all over the world later on.

DD: It had a decent distant degree program, and I received a full scholarship from this school. Most of the top universities in Moscow didn’t offer distant degree programs, and a few that did were more commercial and didn’t offer a scholarship. Also, Yugra is closer to where my parents lived, and I wanted to spend more time with my family when I would go back to Russia.

DD: During the summer and winter breaks, I flew back home and had to take exams at Yugra. As I have a lot of friends in Russian law schools, I asked them for study materials. I basically self-studied [from] those. There was an option to go to lectures at Yugra about a month prior to the exams, but it wasn’t possible because I was in Abu Dhabi. I could work on my assignments during my spare time in Abu Dhabi. When the Russian exam schedules didn’t fit my schedule, I wrote to the university and asked for a re-schedule so that I could take them during the winter and summer breaks.

DD: I put [my] NYUAD workload as my number one priority. If my Russian law workload didn’t fit into my NYUAD schedule, I simply postponed and crammed for the exams later on. But since Russian is my native language, I could digest information in Russian a lot quicker and retain [it] longer. Once when I arrived home for my winter break, I had a Roman law exam in about 12 hours. Until that point, all I had studied was looking at slides about a month ago. I crammed for about eleven hours and took the exam. Still, I could do fairly well on the exam because I could consume information in Russian really fast.

DD: One of the biggest challenges for me was not being able to fully enjoy my breaks. When other students at NYUAD would go home to relax, I still thought, “Oh, I’m going to spend my next ten days studying for an exam.”

And as of now, I feel like I have a partial knowledge of the Russian law simply because of the way I had to learn it, which is unfortunate. This is one of the reasons why when I go to the [United States], I want to pursue a three-year-long Juris Doctor program rather than a one-year-long LLM because the way I had to approach my Russian degree omitted some depth of the knowledge that I wish I would have had.

DD: The biggest reason I chose Economics was the breadth and applicability of its curriculum. Even if I weren’t to pursue law, I still would have a good understanding of what my other options could be. Also, Economics in many ways was an option that provided the most security. To go to law school, I needed a good GPA, and given my academic background, I knew I could study for a test well. Economics is a test-based major that I could do well [in].

For Political Science, at first I wasn’t really considering it, but as I grew more comfortable in English, I felt freer to experiment with courses. I chose the courses based on the professors or my interests in the content, and it just happened that a lot of those courses counted for a major in Political Science.

DD: [Aim] for the highest GPA and prepare early for the LSAT. I would say GPA and LSAT account for 40 percent each for law school admissions, and essays and recommendation letters [account for] ... 20 percent. I personally started preparing for the LSAT during the summer after sophomore year. I also recommend utilizing funding from the university and taking tutoring.