Almost 60,000 Russian students are currently studying abroad, most notably in EU countries. One notable example is Germany, as 5% of its total 355,000 foreign students are our fellow citizens. China and India are the only countries to provide more students to Germany than our country. The reasons for such a popularity of studying abroad are more than obvious – a degree received from European university is a potential new start in life, not to mention that there is a common belief that education quality in the foreign countries is substantially higher than in our universities.
Whether it is true or not is a question, and in order to answer it Forpost came to a decision to compare Russian and European education settings. For more objectivity, we have decided to talk to a student from Saint-Petersburg Mining University Rostislav Konoplin, who is studying at minerals processing department. He has recently finished his education in Finland, where he received a Degree from LUT (Lappeenranta University of Technology), and at the moment he is getting ready for Master’s Degree approval in his own Alma Mater.
In Rostislav’s opinion, there is a huge difference in regards to education approach. For instance, attending lectures is not strictly necessary in Suomi. It is a personal decision of each student. If a certain course is of no interest to a student, there is no need to enroll for that course, and no sanctions are implied for not doing so.
There is no structured course schedule as well. Sometimes students have to choose what lecture they would prefer to attend, as course sessions held by different teachers might overlap.
“It is actually very convenient for a student, as you choose the courses you are interested in, enroll and attend them, but on the other side when two lectures take place in the same time, and you would prefer to attend both of them, it might be stressful to try to be everywhere at once – as you spend an hour listening to one lecturer and then run to another auditorium to listen to another lecturer. On the contrary, attending practical studies is obligatory”. As Rostislav says, passing assignments as well as taking part in different projects and constantly providing evidence of completed study activities, is required from all students.
Applying in practice knowledge gained in European or American technical universities is a cornerstone, a basis for training future engineers. In fact it is an example of a significant difference between Russian and European educational systems. In Russian universities during the term students are mainly learning theoretical bases, and only once all exams have been passed they proceed to practical training.
“Finnish educational system is based on participating in group projects. Assignments are usually handed out by university’s partners, and their superiors are usually more or less interested in work results. In other words, the whole point is to accomplish some work related objective, whereas in Russian universities students often aim to get a credit in student’s record book. The workload is usually divided among group members, and the group is responsible for providing the feedback to the teachers or company representatives once in every two or three weeks. In between times the student is on his own – searching for study materials and analyzing them”.
The biggest project in which Rostislav was involved in Finland was a 4 month project ordered by VTT. Students had to make a model for manufacturing biodegradable plastic and calculate its efficiency. In particular, they needed to decide on equipment required for building that specific aggregate, process variables, possible geographic location and suppliers of raw materials, as well as they had to present economic justification for their choices.
Rostislav says, that knowledge gained while studying in Mining University was more than enough to cope will all the study tasks. However, it was at first difficult to adapt, as apart from Finns and Russians his study group also comprised of many other nationalities, such as Spanish for example. Time is essential to connect with people having different cultural background and mindset, it is also required to get used to another work style.
“Another, specific to Finnish educational system, feature is that students there spend a lot of time working on the computers with various software programs, and the process of learning is mainly conducted via online learning environment web portals. Teachers record lectures and then upload them as video files to web portals, which is actually quite useful, especially when preparing for exams. If a person could not attend the lecture, there is also a possibility of reading everything directly from the web pages. Our group assignment reports were also to be uploaded to web learning portal, therefore printing them out was not necessary. In addition to advantages, there are negative sides as well. All the communication with teachers usually takes place on web forums, in a way that a student asks his/her questions and then the teacher answers them. In our country it is possible to have an informal meeting with a professor - knock at the door, come in, ask something. In Finland that would not be considered acceptable. If you incidentally meet the teacher and ask a study related question, he will be rather surprised. Nobody will talk to you outside of working hours”, says Master’s Degree student.
Rostislav also believes that thanks to studying in LUT he has improved his timing and other practical skills as well as knowledge of English. He is also inclined to believe that Degree issued by European University will support his high level of competency on the labour market. Nevertheless, right now he is not aiming to hit this market, as his further plan is to become a postgraduate student in his own Alma Mater.