Some final projects end up on a shelf. Bianca Timofte’s ended up as a job offer. During our Master in Travel Journalism, she chose to research Ras Al Khaimah, the northernmost emirate of the UAE. A few months after finishing, she moved there to work as Content Executive at Augustus Media, one of the region’s leading digital media groups. It’s a clear example of what a travel journalism master can lead to when the final project is treated as a professional asset, not an assignment.
Who is Bianca Timofte?
Bianca is a Romanian journalist and travel storyteller, drawn to culture, heritage, identity and the stories behind places. This year she completed two milestones at once: her Bachelor’s degree and the Master in Travel Journalism at the School of Travel Journalism.
“Coming from Romania, I honestly never imagined that I would end up working in the UAE,” she wrote to us this week, “especially in the exact place I had researched and written about during my studies.”
What was her final master’s project about?
At STJ, the final project starts on day one. Each student chooses a destination and builds a real travel journalism project around it throughout the program, with one-to-one mentoring from the academic team.
Bianca chose Ras Al Khaimah.
Ras Al Khaimah is a destination most travellers still pass by on their way to Dubai: mountains that reach almost 2,000 metres at Jebel Jais, desert, mangroves, archaeological sites and a coastline that is changing fast. For a journalist interested in heritage and identity, it’s rich territory. Covering it properly meant doing what the master asks of every student: research in depth, talk to people who live there, and find the angle nobody else is telling.
How did a final project turn into a job?
Bianca puts it simply: the master gave her the chance to “develop a strong understanding of the region through my own research, meet interesting people, and build connections.”
That combination is what made the difference. By the time she finished, she wasn’t a graduate with a generic portfolio. She was a journalist who already knew Ras Al Khaimah, had contacts on the ground and could show published-quality work about the emirate.
The timing helped too. In February 2026, Augustus Media, the group behind Lovin’, Smashi’ Sports and the ODEUM content studio, opened an office in Ras Al Khaimah focused on local lifestyle, tourism and the emirate’s development. A newsroom building its team in a place Bianca had spent months researching was a natural fit.
This week, Augustus Media welcomed her publicly as Content Executive for its Northern Emirates office, describing her as a Romanian travel journalist with a Master’s in Travel Journalism and “a passion for exploring culture, heritage, and identity.”
What does this story show about a travel journalism master?
A few lessons are worth underlining for anyone considering the program:
- Pick a destination you could work in. Your final project is months of deep research. Choose a place, a theme or an industry where that knowledge could become your professional niche.
- Research like a journalist, not a tourist. Bianca’s value to her employer came from understanding the region, not from having visited it.
- Build connections along the way. The people you interview for your project are also your first professional network in that place.
- Treat the project as your calling card. A strong, focused final project tells an editor exactly what you can do and where.
Why we’re telling this story
At STJ we measure the master by what happens after the last class: which newsrooms, magazines and media companies open their doors to the people who train with us. Bianca’s path, from Romania to a final project about a UAE emirate to a job in that same emirate, is exactly the kind of outcome we build the program for.
As she wrote to us: the school “really has the potential to open doors and create opportunities that you might not even expect at the beginning of your journey.” We couldn’t have put it better.
Congratulations, Bianca. We can’t wait to read what you publish from Ras Al Khaimah.
If you’d also like to turn a destination you care about into a professional project, take a look at the Master in Travel Journalism: program, faculty and upcoming intakes.
