Excellence Academy Bosnia and Herzegovina is honored to express sincerest congratulations to Ilma Dedić Grabus who is now Assistant Professor on department of Management on Faculty of Economics, University of Zenica. Ilma previously worked in Uni Credit Bank and afterwards on University of Zenica on administration desk. We have used this significant achievement of Ilma to have a make interview with her for Excellence Academy topic on «Youth & Excellence».
Ilma begins our conversation self-confidently and at the same time self aware of responsibilities that she has in her new role:
«This is very dynamic type of job and the schedule is always there with certain dead lines but none of days in schedule isn’t the same. My everyday responsibilities and duties are easier when I know that I work something I love because every day I do my best to learn something new and to share that with young people.
Her working days consists of four hours of lessons and direct communication with students. Rest of the time she does administrative works for the Faculty and for the department. Her working time is regularly nine hours, sometimes even more due to differences in teaching schedule. There are days when she has to bring the work home to complete it. All of this takes persistence and dedicated work that she has already embraced to her character and daily routine while she used to be a student. When we asked her about about lessons that she would like to share and advice to youth, Ilma replied:
«The only sure investment is investment in knowledge. I used to listen very often critiques and different opinions such as that good marks and learning do not pay off in the end. Nevertheless, I have been always dedicating myself to that what I have been doing at the time and eventually everything has payed off. I was devoted to activities outside the regular school hours and that have enabled me to become communicative person and to build a network of people which I do think is much important.»
Ilma has continued her studies to develop further professionally, to learn new competencies and she does sport too. She is currently on post graduate studies on Faculty of Economic studies in Tuzla. Most of her time beside work is dedicated to studies of faculty literature, nevertheless she finds time to read different literature too:
«Off course, I don’t read only faculty literature. The last book I red and that I really liked was ‘The honor’ written by Elif Shafak. Also I try to maintain my physical activity through Zumba training.»
For the end of our conversation we asked Ilma to reflect on her regular motivation when challenges and obstacle face her.
«I remember what I have gone through and how I felt in those hard moments, how some situations seemed unsolvable and in the end everything finished great. And that gave me even more strength. That gives me power to continue forward. Never fall, only a lesson. We get in our lives as much as we can handle and bring forth.»
Ilma Dedić Grabus and Nermana Mahmić on BDC 2018 conference as representatives of Faculty of Economics, University of Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
