Russia: the country yet to be explored

Updated on: Monday, May 25, 2009

Makarenko Angelina Vasilevna
Russia has long term traditions in providing foreign students with high quality education. It started in the 17th century with the opening of the first Russian higher education institution—Slavic-Greek Latin academy (1678). It is absolutely interesting to study in Russia, the unknown land with its traditions. You start living entirely different way of life.

It is difficult to study in Russia and the main obstacle for a foreign student is the Russian language. One year of preparatory Russian course (which is often a must before getting down to studying your profession) is usually not enough that is why a foreign student has to speak Russian quite well before applying to a serious study program.

There are about 89,000 foreign students from 162 countries of the world studying now in the Russian Federation, of which 16,910 are from India. The average age of the foreign student in Russia is 22.5 years.

The most sought after courses for Indian students are engineering, medicine, culture, management, computer science and economics.
It is common knowledge that Moscow state university (MSU) is the leading high education school of the Russian Federation. There are about 3,000 students studying at this university nowadays. Among their preferences are such study programs as economics, computer science, sociology and journalism. Some students come to MSU to study foreign languages because rare languages are professionally taught in this university.

Study programs in philology and foreign languages are widely chosen by the foreign students too. The majority of foreign students studying in MSU come from Asian countries: China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Kazakhstan.

As for Russia in general, almost about 50% of its foreign students come from Asia, Africa and Middle East. The second place is taken by the students from the former USSR republics.
Usually foreign students prefer to study engineering, economics and management in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other universities of the European part of Russia.
Doctor's profession is being mastered mostly in the universities of the European part of Russia and humanitarian professions are studied in the regional universities.

Russia is known for its fundamental high education and the cost is much less than in the European or American universities. Students with a good command of the Russian language who are enrolled to PhD studies get scholarships from the Government and have a good chance to make a career.

Deccanchronicle

Russia: the country yet to be explored

More Education news