A Conversation with Incoming Minerva Graduate Student Oded Abulafia

This is part of a series of profiles introducing students from Minerva’s incoming Fall 2025 graduate class. If you would like to learn more about our programs, please visit our website.

Oded is from Tel Aviv, Israel, and earned his bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. He currently works as a graphic designer, with a specialization in branding and strategy-based design. As he describes it, his daily life revolves around design, CrossFit, and improving his skills as a pastry chef, and he is more than excited to begin his journey at Minerva.

Oded reflects on his professional journey, rich in transitions across the various fields of design.

“When I started my undergraduate studies, I was deeply passionate about becoming a tattoo artist, inspired by my love for drawing and illustration. This burning passion, however, did not last long. At the academy, I got exposed to so many different ways of expressing myself, including typography and image making, that I ended up in product design, specifically UI/UX. After successfully designing a number of finance websites, I had to realize that this field was a bit far from my true passion. I was lucky enough, though, as this job introduced me to the world of strategy-based design, which became my main goal in my profession, and something that I continue to be fascinated by to this day.”

After taking a step back and returning to the core of his profession, Oded settled down at a small branding studio for a few years. He worked long hours in an intense work environment but loved every minute of it: as Oded puts it, this job taught him to work with his imagination, not against it. Even though this position opened his mind to creativity, Oded realized there was a glass ceiling in his field, and it was time to move on.

He currently works at a branding design studio, with a focus on strategy-based design. His main responsibilities include interviewing and researching their client base—essential tasks that serve as a basis for creative solutions. Oded chose Minerva because he believes the Master’s in Decision Making and Applied Analytics (MDA) program can take his career one step further.

“My next career goal is to establish a creative strategy agency that solves problems through innovative ideas, not limited to design-based solutions. While I imagine the company to remain design-focused, it would broaden its services to include areas like management, campaigns, and copywriting. Essentially, it would operate similarly to a consulting firm, grounded in thorough research.”

Oded began exploring master’s programs because he noticed that all his projects were following the same pattern, and he was starting to feel stagnant in his work.

“My program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design included an opportunity to apply for the scholarship at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Since I was applying for the scholarship and had prepared my resume and portfolios, I thought I would take a leap of faith and apply to Minerva as well, which has been in the back of my mind for some time. I ended up getting accepted to both programs, but made the firm decision that a design degree could not give me what Minerva offers. So I just went for it and chose Minerva.”

Oded reflects on the aspects of Minerva that made the university stand out to him:

“To be completely honest, Minerva just sounded fresh and new to me. It was an interesting option, one that seemed to encourage people who want to learn differently to do so. As someone who had long rejected the traditional way of learning, I felt like I needed more freedom in my future studies. I wanted a place that fosters innovation and allows one to think differently. I don’t want to work with more designers; I am doing that already. I want to learn with and from people from different professional backgrounds and perspectives. I expect interactions to be nothing short of mind-opening: I look forward to bringing my point of view as a designer while hearing what, for example, an engineer will bring to the table.”