Meetings with Classmates and First Lectures: New Academic Year Starts at HSE University
How HSE students are returning to the University after a long period of distance learning and what first-year students expect from their studies – in the photo report of HSE news service.
Today HSE University is close to its usual life. However, now you have to wear masks for offline lectures and meetings with friends at our University cafes, and everyone must have their temperature checked at the entrance.
‘Despite the need to wear masks, we are happy that we can study offline,’ says Jennet Babayeva, first-year student at the ICEF programme in Economics.
‘In the morning we had a meeting with our tutors. Now I’ve got a gap in my schedule, so my classmates and I are walking around Pokrovka getting used to the building, although I know it quite well, because I studied in a part-time programme here’ says the student. Jeannette's classmate Gleb Chernyshov, on the other hand, has never been to HSE on Pokrovsky Boulevard before. The student came to Moscow from Almetyevsk (Republic of Tatarstan). He admits that his first impression is very positive: ‘I came to Moscow alone, I have no friends, no relatives, literally no one here, but my classmates are great and the tutors are friendly. The University is awesome: the building is cool, almost as if you were in a museum. I think that HSE is a place where your ambitions can go hand in hand with fantastic opportunities and superb teaching, and as a result you get something great.’
Artem Pankin, first-year student at the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, agrees with Gleb: ‘HSE is an interesting, large and diverse university that I really like. My studies haven't started yet, but I'm looking forward to it.’ Artem notes that most of his friends are studying at HSE in different faculties, while the he chose the programme in Urban Planning.
As always, senior students help first-year students to cope with the difficult process of adapting to a new life. Today, curators of the educational programme ‘Advertising and Public Relations’ have held adaptation training for 11 groups of Russian students and an online group of international students. Student mentors explain to the first-year students how the study office works, what student organizations exist at HSE, and how the study process is organised. And, of course, training is not complete without some teambuilding activities.
First-year student Alexandra Badulina says that she has managed to meet almost all her classmates. ‘Yesterday I attended an informal meeting and talked to everyone,’ says Alya. ‘Everyone gets along well with each other, there were no timid people, and everything feels comfortable. I really like it already.’
