We've recently been collecting the reasons our recently graduated MA students applied to CEU, and came up with some surprising results. From the perspective of faculty, our students applied due to the small class sizes, individual supervision, and our professors' research expertise in their fields. To some extent, student responses reflected this, but the reasons were much more focused than we expected.
For example, Zeynep Olgun applied for the 2-year MA due to our expertise in Byzantine and Mediterranean history. This allowed her to deepen her historical understanding before embarking on her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Aleksandr Orlov had similar reasons: he wanted to deepen his knowledge of Central European, Mediterranean, comparative and transnational history. He is now studying for his PhD at Columbia University, New York.
For Andrei Dumitrescu, now at Stanford University, CEU gave him a broader understanding of Byzantine art within the broader late antique and medieval world. Yevhen Yashchuk, originally from Ukraine and now studying at the University of Oxford, found that his time at CEU gave him the metholodological grounding in comparative and transnational history that he needed for his PhD.
This is commonly found amongst our MA students, with a large number continuing their studies at PhD level at CEU (amongst the current cohort this includes Gulrano Ataeva, Samuel Beňa, Saranya Chandran, Marta Haiduchok and Jack Wilson). Some MA students come to us for a year of intense study with our faculty whilst they are working on their PhD at another institution. Other students go onto work in national government (for example in Bhutan), in NGOs, or in editorial work within and without academia, as well as many other fields. And, of course, some simply come to study at CEU for an enriching experience after successful careers elsewhere!