Studying Abroad: Exploring Eastern Horizons

Russian universities have changed the vector of international cooperation. Anna Rumyantseva, Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs, explained with whom and how UMTE builds its relations and where our students can go to study.

- St. Petersburg University of Management Technologies and Economics has always attracted university entrants because of its long-standing partnerships with foreign universities. Students could not only study for a semester, but also get a double degree with universities in France, Germany, Finland, Spain. That is, the university was oriented towards Western partners. In recent years, Russian universities have started to change their cooperation orientations, they have increasingly started to strengthen and expand partnerships with other countries - those that are not unfriendly. What new partners have UMTE got, and what can they offer our students?

- Over the past few years, our university has changed the vector of cooperation due to external circumstances - we have reoriented towards cooperation with universities from friendly Asian and Latin American countries. Over the last two years we have doubled the number of partners, and today we have about 30 agreements with foreign universities from these countries, where our students can go for internships. In particular, we have discovered new universities in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, where our students will go for the first time this year as part of the academic student exchange programs.

- UMTE has not only sent its students to study abroad, but also hosted foreign students. In your opinion, are young people from other countries interested in studying in Russia now, who come to the university on exchange?

- Since the possibility for students from European countries to do internships in Russia was closed, we met mostly students from CIS countries. Mostly students from the Republic of Belarus came to us for internships. This year the trends have changed and students from far abroad have come to us, for example, from the partner university of Walailak University in Thailand. This year students from there came to study at our university for a semester. Multiyear practice shows that the number of students starts to grow when there is an exchange of students. That is, after our students have gone to a friendly university, the next year students from that foreign university come to us for a semester-long internship. Similarly, if international students who study with us for a semester join our students in the classroom, some cultural barriers are removed, and the following year our students plan and carry out trips to foreign countries.

- Student exchange programs are a good way to get acquainted with the world, to acquire a new perspective on profession and attitude to life. Are today's students ready for the fact that now the vector of interaction has turned eastward?

- No doubt, this situation was stressful for both students and us in terms of reorienting our cooperation, but primarily because of the distance of these countries from St. Petersburg. From the point of view of curricula, the methodology of coordinating partnerships, we work according to the same model: we meet with partners, make familiarization visits to see the partner university - its infrastructure, make acquaintance of the academic community and get to know its scientific potential. And then academic exchange begins, when our students go there and we receive students from there.

Similarly, we are very active in receiving delegations from friendly countries. For example, last year we were visited by delegations from the People's Republic of China, Indonesia and Serbia. We actively continue to cooperate with them in the framework of academic exchanges.

In addition, in the realities of the pandemic and its aftermath, we have begun to actively develop online collaboration with our foreign partners. For example, we conduct a number of online schools together with universities from Mexico - the University of Colima and the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, and from Thailand we have a good partner - Kasem Bundit University, with which in the last academic year we conducted such an intensive model of online learning, when our students in the classroom with a teacher studied project management at our base, and their students with their teacher studied the same subject in Thailand. They had about five synchronous meetings online, where the guys discussed the goals and objectives of the project, and then independently in mixed teams prepared a project, which at the end of the discipline was defended in an online format. Now this academic year three students will go to this university for internships - this is such a practical result of this online event.

Participation in the academic mobility program gives our students a unique opportunity to see what it is like to study in a foreign university, to compare how easy or difficult it is. We have a practice in which students studying at several levels of education went on internship at all levels. That is, the first time they went on an internship while studying at the bachelor's level, in the third year of study, and then during the master's program. For example, we have a student who went to Vietnam while studying at the undergraduate level, now he is enrolled in a master's program and in a month, he will go to Thailand on exchange. And further it is possible to enter the postgraduate program, and such an opportunity of foreign internship will be within the framework of scientific research.

The goal of this internship is to familiarize students with the cultural peculiarities of another country, to find a new trajectory of their professional career development, to give them an opportunity to compare the teaching methods in a foreign country, to learn the language of the host country, because they actively use this opportunity and learn the language at least at the elementary level. And they come back with completely different competences, they are ready to defend the subject of their studies more qualitatively, they become more communicative.

If we talk about students coming to us, it is much easier for students from the Republic of Belarus - they have no language barrier, there is a wide range of programs they can enroll in - they come to any program in Russian, we enroll them in groups with our students, and they adapt very quickly. And they are happy to spend their student days for six months in one of the best cities in Russia and the world. There have even been precedents when students from Belarus asked to stay for the next semester.

- It is not the first year when the University takes part in the Eastern Economic Forum, where, among other things, issues of cooperation in the educational and scientific sphere are raised. This year was no exception. What are the results of this work? Have new partners appeared, tell us about it?

- Speaking about this year, the Eastern Economic Forum turned out to be very rich in terms of program content, and there was a very good component of international participation. We managed to meet with many foreign delegates. In particular, we met with the Rector of Liaoning University from China, we managed to hold negotiations and agree on mutual exchange of students, teachers and further cooperation.

- So, the number of foreign participants grows from forum to forum?

- We participated in the forum for the third time. In the first year we attended the forum, there were more participants from the educational sphere in terms of geography. Three years ago, we met participants from Vietnam, Mongolia, and China. Last year, there were few participants from the international educational community at the forum. This year there were even separate educational tracks, taking into account the expansion of BRICS, ASSEAN, to understand how educational communities feel in this process, what they see, what place they want to occupy, what support we can give them within the framework of these associations.

- This spring St. Petersburg University of Management Technologies and Economics together with its partner university Vladivostok State University implemented a unique program «Cross-Cultural Communications: Russia-China». Are joint programs with Russian universities and foreign partners a promising direction? Does UMTE plan to continue such cooperation?

- We became acquainted with Vladivostok State University at the forum three years ago and planned to develop academic student mobility programs. We managed to implement the program «Cross-Cultural Communications: Russia-China» when our students, with the support of the staff of this university, made a trip to Vladivostok and China. As part of this trip, they visited Yanbian University in China, saw the city of Yanji on a sightseeing tour and were able to see that it is realistic to travel to China, what kind of material base this university has, and agreed to continue such trips.

We certainly plan to continue such cooperation and organize such cross-cultural trips for students who are interested in international mobility, so that they can get acquainted with the university and the opportunities it has.

Again, within the framework of the Eastern Economic Forum, we managed to visit this university in China with the rector of our university, Oleg Smeshko, and during this visit we have already signed a cooperation agreement. Now our students can come not only for cross-cultural short-term study tours, but we can already safely offer a semester trip to study at this university.

- Anna Yurievna, as a Vice-Rector, how do you evaluate the difference in the organization of the cooperation process with Europe and Asia? What is the difference in the organization of cooperation?

- Of course, there is a difference, we got used to it and are still getting used to it, because it is a different culture, a different style of communication, a different approach to solving issues. We have been working with Chinese universities not for the last two years, but for quite a long time, and our students have traveled to China before, however, there were not many of them. The main peculiarity of these countries is that before an agreement is concluded, several rounds of negotiations have to be held. It is practically impossible to conclude an agreement with them one day a day, to agree on everything at once. Their culture provides for mutual visits, acquaintance with partners both on their side and on our side, which increases the period of signing an agreement, compared to Europe, for example. Again, territorial remoteness imposes its own peculiarity - it is not so easy to visit them. You cannot combine visits to several universities in one trip. On the educational side, a lot depends on the country. We have encountered such a peculiarity of Thailand that they have a completely different educational schedule: when we have summer vacations, they have quite an educational time. The fall semester starts in November at best, and ends in January, they have trimester education. There is also a peculiarity in Master's studies, which we discovered during the implementation of mobility - Master's students’ study only on weekends. That is, our students who went there, all week long prepare in complete peace, and on weekends they study. These are the peculiarities that were not on the surface of the organization of mobility. Now our students start going abroad to study from August to November, depending on the country they are going to.

- Do the students themselves share their impressions?

-Students have different opportunities depending on the country and the university they choose; it was also a new experience for them. Who used to go to Asia? It was those guys who came to us from Kyrgyzstan, from Kazakhstan, from the Far East - for whom these countries were not something surprising. They understood what awaited them there. And for the majority of students from the European territory of our country it is a great experience to go to Asia and find their place there, with all the peculiarities of adaptation. Young people adapt very quickly, they find their advantages everywhere. At the same time, they have serious training there, and the amount of information they learn there is quite extensive.