a special advertising feature
Bramson ORT College graduates Marina Baltaeva and Daniel Afrahim will tell you without hesitation how the education they received altered their lives in ways they could never have imagined.
Bramson’s campuses in Queens and Brooklyn serve a heterogeneous and vibrant population, with students and staff coming from every corner of the world.
Baltaeva, a 24-year-old born in Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, was raised in the capital city of Tashkent. She went for high school to the Tula region of Russia, and after several years of shuttling between Russia and the United States, she and her mother finally decided live in New York City.
A Russian-speaking advisor at Bramson ORT College steered her to the business management program and English as a second language classes, which she could take to improve her fluency. She leapt in with both feet.
Baltaeva graduated in 2012 and is now a year into a bachelor’s degree program in finance at New York’s acclaimed Baruch College (with a master’s on the horizon). She is also working part-time as an advisor in Bramson ORT’s financial aid office, helping those who, like her, need help navigating their options and opportunities.
“Bramson ORT College gave me the belief in myself, the belief in people, the belief that everything is possible,” says Baltaeva.
Seventeen-year-old Daniel Afrahim was three months shy of high school graduation in the southwestern Iranian city of Shiraz when his family began the arduous process of emigrating. Without a high school diploma, Afrahim was stymied when he finally reached the United States in 2003, finding he could not get accepted into a traditional college degree program.
A relative directed Afrahim to Bramson ORT College, where he earned both his GED and an associate’s degree in computers. Daniel Afrahim’s mother, Soraya, a nurse for 15 years in Iran, followed her son’s lead and earned a degree in medical assistance, also at Bramson ORT.
“Coming from another country, another culture, another language, you need somebody to hold your hand, to guide you,” Afrahim said. “And I think that was the big advantage Bramson had.”
Bramson’s exchange agreements with local colleges allowed Daniel to transfer to the New York Institute of Technology and complete his bachelor’s degree. One of Daniel’s first commissioned projects was for Bramson ORT, to redesign its website and marketing materials. Today, he is a small business owner and well on his way to a successful career as an interactive art director.
Although Baltaeva and Afrahim come from different backgrounds and experiences, their ORT education bonds them not only to each other but also to the 300,000 students around the world who each day attend an ORT program somewhere across five continents.
Administered by World ORT, one of the largest global Jewish non-governmental education organizations, the ORT network of programs operates in over 50 countries, offering a superb education through a curriculum that prioritizes science and technology education, career-ready skills, classrooms equipped with up-to-date equipment and facilities, and intensive teacher training. Since 1880, this combination, always tailored to what specific communities need, has proved successful, adaptive, and oftentimes miraculous.
An ORT education’s goal is to improve, empower and employ by giving students skills and knowledge that grant them a competitive advantage so that they can succeed against all odds and obstacles. Education for all is our mission. Are you ready to join us?