Education

I come from a family where almost every one is a doctor. My grandfather, my grandmother, my uncle, both of my aunts, my cousin, my parents, my brother. Whether it's a cardiologist, a pediatrician, a surgeon, or a dermatologist - almost everyone in our family has a medical education and works in that field. When I told my parents I don't want to be a doctor... Well, needless to say, that was a big disappointment.

The story I like to tell is that our family has always been focused on helping other people. And while I didn't want to be a doctor I could only choose a career that would help others as well. And being a lawyer seemed like the best option. After all the goal of any attorney is to defend their clients and help them save their lives.

While there is certainly a lot of truth to this reasoning I think another reason was also that I was just a stubborn child. And when everyone was telling me: "you must become a doctor" - my only reaction was "no, thank you".

Nevertheless, in 2005-2006 I was 100% certain I will be an attorney. Not just an attorney, I knew that I wanted to be an international corporate lawyer. Three words you don't expect to hear from a 15 year old. However, I think there is a logic to it. Let me explain.

Though I was born in Russia, my parents always thought that it would be essential to learn English in order to succeed in the highly globalized world of “tomorrow”. Because of this, starting from 2nd grade every summer they sent me and my brother to a sports camp here in US - Kenmont camp in Connecticut. It's important to note that in 2nd grade I spoke almost zero English. But a young boy's brain works like a sponge. And when I was thrown into a gamified sports experience where I had to speak english to succeed - learning the language came natural. Visiting US every year since I was 10 likely instilled in me the desire to work internationally in the future.

The origin of the "corporate" desire is harder to explain. What I can say is that I wanted to be an entrepreneur even before I knew what that word meant. Back in late 199x, early 200x, believe it or not, wrestling was quite popular in Russia. Frequently me and my school friends pretended to be The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin. Because I also visited US a lot I was also able to buy collecting cards with different wrestling heroes. What I did next was bring them back to Russia and try to sell it to my school buddies at 1 card for 10 rubles (about 40c back then), I remember that price to this day. That didn't last long unfortunately with one of my friends mom soon coming to school, telling everyone including my parents how inappropriate my behavior was and essentially putting a full stop to my "growing resell empire". But since then business ideas were in my. And as I wanted to be a lawyer international corporate law now seemed like exactly what I needed to do.

Whatever the reasons were I was on a course to become an international corporate lawyer. Grades 10 and 11 I finished in 1 year under a special expedited program and in 2007 I moved to US. My plan was to study in both countries at the same time: full time in US and remote (coming for exams only) in Russia. Over the course of the next 6-7 years I was spending school semester in US, first studying in Adelphi University and then New York Law School, and then whenever there a break in school in US I would go back to Russia to pass exams there in the Moscow State Law University.

While I don't honestly think this was particularly hard as it seemed I had plenty of time free to study, I didn't always studied well. The turning moment for me was when I did poor on an assignment and during the office hours one of the professors said that he thinks I bit off more than I can chew by deciding to study in two countries. And at the time that was likely true. In his class I was a struggling C student. But when I heard him, heard the doubt in me, that I am not good enough - that reenergized me to prove him wrong. I improved in the current class, then signed up for more of his classes and aced all of them. I think this moment played a big rule in my development by showing that I can be much better and that there is no challenge one cannot solve if you just work hard.

While I was still in two law schools I have also founded Malyshev EduSys, a company that would build educational apps for grad and undergrad school exams. Even though by the time I was finishing law school the business started to seem more interesting I nevertheless prepared for and then passed the New York Bar Exam, becoming an officially licensed attorney in New York. But as business side of things started to pick up I would never put my license to use and would stick to working in IT after my education.