Proceedings of the International scientific and practical conference ―New York Global Science Conference 2026‖ (May 18-20, 2026) / Publisher website: www.naukainfo.com. – New York, USA, 2026. - 322 p.

187 tools in learning, plan in advance ways to monetize the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired in higher education, etc. (Chen & Chen, 2014; Johnson, 2017; Mahmoud, 2014). Generalization of all the above information, taking into account the differences between the student's image and the process of purposeful formation of the image of a specialist in professional activity, makes it possible to conditionally distinguish the self-image of a higher education applicant into five consecutive stages, namely: • the orientation and adaptation stage involves a thorough familiarization of the first-year student with the conditions of study at a higher education institution and the main determinants of his future specialty; • the informative and design stage is marked by the intensification of the educational and practical activity of the higher education applicant with a mandatory focus on independence; • the integrative and formative stage enables the formation and intermediate diagnostics of the future specialist's basic knowledge, skills and abilities of image; • the personal and transformational stage involves the gradual inclusion of the student in future professional activity with the improvement of complex image skills; • the reflective-corrective stage is aimed at the student's self-monitoring of the image from the perspective of its adaptation to future professional activity. REFERENCES: 1. Chen, C.-F., & Chen, C.-T. (2014). The effect of higher education brand images on satisfaction and lifetime value from students’ viewpoint. Anthropologist, 17(1), 137–145. 2. Johnson, K. M. (2017). The Importance of personal branding in social media: educating students to create and manage their personal brand. International Journal of Education and Social Science , 4(1), 21–27. 3. Mahmoud, R. (2014). The main determinants of international student identification with a UK middle ranking business school corporate brand: an