Ten Facts about HSE's International Community

Every year, the HSE family welcomes representatives of new countries and becomes more interesting and diverse. On June 4, 2017, international students will talk to visitors about their home countries and introduce them to their cultures at The Whole World at HSE festival. To give you a quick pre-festival snapshot of how international HSE is, we’ve brought together ten facts about the university international life for you.

1. Over 1,700 international students study at HSE today, and another 600 come here as part of exchange programmes. Over 600 HSE students spend a semester or year abroad as part of academic mobility programmes.

2. The university employs over 100 professionals from 25 countries, hired under the international recruitment procedure. Besides, several prominent international scholars, including Eric Maskin, Nobel Prize winner in economics, and Andrey Okounkov, Fields Medal winner, work at HSE.

3. HSE campuses offer 25 master’s and 5 undergraduate programmes taught in English, where Russian and international students study together. In addition, there are 42 double-degree programmes with leading universities in Europe, America, and Asia.

4. The university boasts 32 international laboratories, from a Neurolinguistics Laboratory, to a Laboratory of Decision Choice and Analysis.

 

5. Since 2014, HSE has held a Summer University for international students. These summer semesters give students an opportunity to get credits that are accepted at their home universities. You can choose courses from seven subject areas, including Russian studies, political science & international relations, economics & management, computer science, mathematics, cultural studies & history, and Russian as a foreign language. Summer University students can also attend courses at HSE campuses in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.

6. There is an Erasmus Student Network office at HSE, ESN HSE Moscow, which regularly hosts a variety of events for international students, including excursions around Moscow and Russia.

7. One of HSE’s student associations is called ‘HSE Chamber of Nationalities’, which organizes national culture nights, movie nights, charity actions, roundtables, and academic conferences.

8. Buddy volunteers help the HSE’s international students settle in to life in Moscow and studies at the university. A buddy is someone who can help international students deal with formalities, organize their everyday life and leisure time, and understand the nuances of student life, etc. There is also a special workshop in intercultural communication focusing on culture shock, among other things. HSE regularly holds orientation sessions for international students where they are told about the university’s history and structure, as well as about its academic and extracurricular life. Cultural Cafés are organized throughout the year, also aimed at integrating international students.

9. HSE runs a Preparatory Year programme, which helps international students prepare to enter both undergraduate and graduate programmes at HSE. Among other things, it offers courses of Russian language.

10. In 2017, HSE is launching an MA programme ‘Russian as a Foreign Language in Cross-Cultural Perspective’. Its graduates will be able not only to teach Russian grammar to international students, but also to introduce them to Russian culture. The programme will be taught in Russian and English, which means that both Russian students with good English skills, and international students with a good knowledge of Russian will be able to study there.