Students of UMTE, Graduates of the TASS School: «At the News Agency, We Worked on 6 Federal Projects»

We present the impressions of Polina Pasichenko about the summer internship that she and her classmate Yulia Mymrina completed at the most famous media outlet in Russia – the TASS news agency.

Both interns (students in the Media Communications program, 3rd year) participated in an author’s course on «Media Monetization and Sales Department Organization in Media», taught in 2024 by leading managers of the agency. As a result of their efforts, the most active participants received an invitation to intern directly in Moscow.

Polina Pasichenko shared her impressions with the editorial office of the website:

«The team of the special projects department at TASS is very friendly. They welcomed us as their own, cared for us, and, of course, as is customary, assigned us various tasks that allowed us to gain new experiences and work as creators and producers.

The week-long internship program in Moscow was related to the implementation of projects already under development at TASS as well as those they were about to undertake. During this time, we managed to work on 6 projects! Among them was a virtual exhibition dedicated to the 50th anniversary of BAM construction (commissioned by Russian Railways). I reviewed the design of the landing page, collected client feedback, and selected photographs for the exhibition. After the launch of a project for the MIR payment system, I checked the website’s functionality on different devices, studying their types and formats, as well as the specifics of layout for them.

We were also given the chance to learn about the intricacies of post-production. For instance, I examined video interviews from the «First Faces of the Regions» column: I reviewed the editing, provided feedback to the editors on necessary corrections in the video, and selected the best behind-the-scenes photos.

There were also two tasks related to projects that are planned for implementation in the near future. For one, I selected locations for a New Year’s photo shoot in various cities across our country, and for the other, I gathered photographs of natural landmarks in different regions. Overall, thanks to this, I now know a lot of beautiful and interesting places in different parts of Russia. I felt an incredible sense of pride for my country and admiration for its beauty and vastness!

Regarding the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant project, I had the opportunity to check design layouts and test the landing page’s formatting.

To ensure that our internship was not limited to the confines of the office, we were taken on a tour of the Musayelyan Museum, dedicated to the famous TASS photographer. In general, we were shown how TASS and its office are organized: the marketing department, the news department, and others, we were shown the main press center, and even attended a lecture that took place there (with the participation of TASS General Director Andrey Kondrashov and Igor Ashmanov - founder and president of AO «Kribrum», member of the Human Rights Council, head of the «Digital Sociology» department at Moscow State University).

We also participated in a video meeting with TASS’s future partners: we listened to how the company presents itself and its case studies, and how it negotiates collaborations.

One of the most pleasant experiences was being taken to their cafeteria every day, which served very delicious food and was quite affordable for a student.

We also met with TASS’s commercial director, Svetlana Lanyugova (who, by the way, represented the TASS School at UMTE). We shared our impressions of the internship and discussed the possibility of other longer internships or traineeships.

We finished our work at 7 PM. After that, if the weather was nice and we had the energy, we walked around the city.

But not for too long, as it gets dark quickly in Moscow, and it was already quite late, plus we had to spend time traveling home (to the dormitory). The dorm was quite far from the metro stations and bus stops. Therefore, it was always a long and tiring journey. There was a factory under our windows with constant noise, and we were not informed about the need to bring towels and change of shoes. We thought it would be like it is in our Training-Hotel «Pushkinsky» (everything would be provided), so we weren’t prepared. But we had good and kind roommates, which made it easier!

We express our immense gratitude to the university, especially to the director of the Institute of Creative Industries and Hospitality, Valery Pavlovich Slanov, and associate professor Elena Vladimirovna Torgunakova for the fantastic opportunity to intern in such a prestigious media and for organizing the trip to Moscow.

By the way, many TASS employees also noted that we were incredibly lucky with our internship location and format. According to them, they did not have such opportunities during their studies.

Furthermore, students from UMTE and other universities are very surprised when they learn that our university fully covered our travel and accommodation expenses. Indeed, not every student can boast about that».

The material was prepared by Polina Pasichenko, the 3rd-year student, majoring in «Media Communication».