I have never climbed to the top of a mountain. As a child, I imagined leading expeditions along icy trails, leading amateur explorers to the top of the world, and instructing beginners on how to survive harsh blizzards. Although slightly changed, my childhood dream was realized. I led a team of classmates in my Strategic Management class to the pinnacle of success in a financial competition. Over the course of a semester, my teammates and I were supposed to create and manage an IT company, in a computer-simulated environment, together with four other rival teams. I took care of the strategic and financial issues of our virtual company, while my colleagues took care of marketing and production. During the four months of the exercise, I experienced finance from various aspects: capital budgeting, through the selection of favorable investments for the coming quarters; debt management, evaluating the necessary amount and efficiency of loans; profitability analysis and dividend policy, which had been used to compile the company's overall performance index. Working in a multinational team, which included an American, a Norwegian and a Moldovan, strengthened my negotiation skills, as well as flexibility and cooperation. But above all, this experience intensified my passion for finance. Of course, a nice bonus was that, in the end, our company's financial performance was six times higher than that of the second-best team. Studying banking and finance at the University of St. Gallen will help me further increase my expertise in corporate finance and financial markets. In-depth research of specific topics, as well as a complete resume, is a chance for me to focus on my topic of interest... half of the paper... and quality of the workforce, because there are only a maximum of twenty people in the country in possession of this certification. Due to the strong ethical component of this designation, its principles should be adopted by financial professions around the world, especially in the days of the post-2007 financial crisis, partly initiated by a lack of moral principles and diligence. While for chocolate lovers Switzerland is synonymous with a delicious paradise, for me the country, being the banking center of continental Europe, equates to well-established traditions in the financial sector. If you want to learn something excellently, acquire knowledge from the best. Switzerland is one such place that will give me the opportunity to combine the values ​​of both the esteemed education in finance and the practical analysis of the theories, applied to the Swiss banking and financial systems.