Hi! My name is Arthur Sheyn, and I’m a 2^nd year MBA student at MIT Sloan. To be quite honest, I was naively ignorant about the importance of the media for most of my life. Annnnndddd then this election happened. I distinctly remember that the moment I first read about whether or not Facebook should be held responsible for policing fake news was the moment I realized how important of a role the media plays in everyday society. (This John Oliver segment was also very eye opening.)

What started as the above nugget (or maybe epiphany) has now evolved into a full-blown curiosity and fascination for how news and media have evolved and must further evolve to serve an important purpose in society. This is why I am taking this class – to educate myself, and hopefully, explore some meaningful solutions for the future.

A bit about me:

• I was born in Ukraine, and my family immigrated (as political refugees, a fact of my history that I have learned to appreciate so much more as of late) to the US in 1991
• I grew up in San Francisco, which meant that for most of my life, I thought the diversity of my childhood was representative of the US (are you beginning to sense a theme of naiveté?)
• Fun fact – I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer (check me out on youtube!). After I stopped competing to go to college, I took up coaching my university’s ballroom dancing team. That experience showed me just how meaningful and powerful communication can be.
• I love action, adventure, nature, pretty much anything outside and remotely physical. One of my highlights of 2016 was going bungee jumping in New Zealand (twice!)
• For my short professional career, I spent 3 years in management consulting and 2 years working for the digital innovation arm of a global retail company. I’ll spare you the details, since LinkedIn provides a pretty good summary!