Yerevan /Mediamax/. Today Chief of the Armenian Presidential Staff Vigen Sargsyan had a meeting with the students of "Luys” Foundation who study at leading universities in the world. Vigen Sargsyan addressed a speech introducing his vision of Armenia – as a country of opportunities.

Mediamax correspondent was present at the meeting and has made a note of the most interesting points of Vigen Sargsyan’s speech.

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Do your best educationally, then come back and contribute professionally to the establishment and advancement of Armenia. When you graduate from your universities, you will see many opportunities around you. It is true that the jobs you will be offered in Armenia after graduating will not be paying you the same amount you would be paid in the U.S. or UK. But I am absolutely confident, and I know it from my own experience – you have an opportunity to be here and do things at the time of creation. Once in a lifetime each nation, just like each person, gets an opportunity to change something and to build a new country. Armenia is going through that process right now. It is a time of a big change. It is difficult to live in a time of a big change, but it is very easy to make a difference in a time of that big change.

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When you look into your future career, you should think of what you want from your life. As you move going into your life cycle, life becomes more hectic, time becomes very tight and you don’t set the time to stop, relax and change things. You just keep on running, keep on paying your bills, credits, your loans, and the best time to project, to think and plan is when you are in university. So part of your academic career should be thinking of your professional career.

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It is of principle importance for you to decide, what you want when starting your professional life. And what you really want, as young, ambitious and educated people is to make a difference. Because no one will judge you by the amount of vacations you have spent in nice places, no one will judge you by the type of house you live in and no one will judge you by the quality of clothes you wear. Everyone will be remembering you by the difference you made. And that's why Armenia is a country of opportunity. Being in a time of transition and in a time of change there is a big opportunity to contribute and to do things.

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When I came back from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy 14 years ago, there were many opportunities for me. And of course, I could think about doing things in the private sector as there were possibilities to join international organizations. But I had decided for myself that with my skills and knowledge I can be useful in helping build the state institutions of my motherland. And job didn’t pay anything at that time. I started as an assistant at the Ministry of Defense and it was paying like USD 150 a month. There were many opportunities and one of them was work at the AUA. I was offered teach there and it helped me sustain my economic startup after academic career. I was lucky as I didn’t have loans to pay back but I was obviously interested in investing in a new apartment for my future family and in creating some conditions allowing me to keep standards of life. In this regard, this university was a great opportunity for me to teach and substitute the low salary in the state sector. I was also doing some crazy things, like translations from English into Armenian at overnights, which would help me pay bills. 

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The key in using an opportunity is not being afraid. That is your key job after graduating from university. You need to overcome that fear and understand that with all changing geopolitics and economic crisis around you, you have to accept that the change is about you. These are not just words. This is something that is measurable and something you can achieve. To do it you need courage to get in very tough jobs, take a responsibility, make decisions and move ahead. You will make mistakes but by those mistakes you will be paving a way for your own professional advancement. And with such mistake you will feel that you know more and you can contribute more to the success of your country.

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Throughout my academic career I saw that every time I was offering something to Armenia, Armenia was generously giving back to me by offering me jobs which were much higher than my age, my experience and sometimes, skills. That's where opportunity is. The Country absolutely needs you. Today being the Chief of Staff of the President I need people with good education. And we have some brilliant people coming to our office and people with wonderful degrees and none of them is connected to anyone or is relative of anyone. All of them are there because they have something to deliver; they see results of their work and are really enjoying what their country gives back to them.

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For bright people countries in transition are the best place to live in. You can never do the same type of career in a developed country. It is a general rule that applies to anywhere in the world, not just to Armenia. Armenia is a unique place, it has a whole range of challenges ahead of it, it has a very complicated geography, very difficult geopolitics and economic situation, closed borders, security challenges and borderland villages that are shot by the enemy every day, but at the same time we need to build a state with relevant state institutions. And the golden rule is “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. So if we survive, we are definitely going to come out much stronger.