What did you study at Queen Mary and what are you doing now?
I studied International Relations for my Bachelor’s Degree and International Business and Politics for my postgraduate studies and right now I am a full time blogger. I have my own fashion and travel blog called La Elegantia.
What made you decide to do both your undergraduate and your postgraduate study at Queen Mary?
I really enjoyed my Bachelor’s Degree here and the course that I wanted to pursue at postgraduate level was only offered in a couple of universities around the world. It therefore seemed natural to stay at Queen Mary; I also loved the fact that my postgraduate course was still connected to politics which was relevant to my undergraduate studies, but that it had a business component too. I really wanted to switch to another topic and challenge myself as well so Queen Mary provided the perfect combination.
What made you choose to study Queen Mary?
The main reason I chose Queen Mary was because of its great rankings and the fact that it is London based – the location was very important for me as I wanted to leave Bulgaria to pursue my studies abroad. I was sure that I wanted to study International Relations and there are not many other universities that offer this course in London. I was also keen to study at a campus university as I felt I would get to experience student life properly
You’ve amassed a huge following on Instagram (759K) how does it feel that people are actively keeping up to date with your life and that they admire your work?
At first the thought of publishing your whole life online for everyone to see can be quite strange and scary, but it is important to remember that you are in control of your content and what is visible to the public eye. Of course you don’t have to publish every detail of your life, but you do have to let people into your life to a large extent so as to keep them engaged and to allow them to feel like they know you and that they can form a connection with you. It’s certainly something that you get used to but sometimes it can be difficult for the people around you and the people who are closest to you. I am sometimes recognised when I go out and this can be difficult on the days when I want to live a normal lifestyle independent from my blogger and social media persona.
There are different societal concerns surrounding social media and its negative impact on the youth of today and on mental health. What is your opinion on social media, especially considering that it forms such a huge part of what you do every day?
My main opinion about social media is that it can be beneficial in many ways. For example, if you are doing something that you want to show to the world or if you are a creative person creating beautiful content, then social media is a great platform to get a lot of exposure which in the past would have been very difficult. Social media further allows you to easily connect to a lot of brands and media outlets, as well as giving you the chance to express yourself and to grow and reach a large audience of people around the world. But at the same time social media can be endangering for young people, many of whom spend a lot of time on social media and compare themselves to other people. I don’t think this is right. Instead they should be spending time with their friends and their family, living in the real world and in real time. It gets very competitive for young people as they can feel very insecure if they upload a picture and they don’t get many likes or comments. This can in turn affect them mentally and emotionally which is the darker side to social media.
>>Read the full interview with Zlatina
Through my blog, I want to show my audience all the incredible places around the world that I travel to, but because I am just as interested in fashion, I always take a lot of different outfits with me to expand my audience’s perspective on fashion too.