Study Abroad Brings Surprises Even Before You Start

Polina Presich, a junior in the Economics and Statistics program, is spending summer by the sea shore practicing her English and improving her leadership skills. They pay you to have fun, as Polina discovered

I started learning English at the age of 7 when my parents sent me to a school with an in-depth focus on English. I have travelled a lot since childhood and this really motivated me to study hard.

At the end of the spring semester 2016, I applied for exchange programs at HSE and was selected to attend the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga for the fall semester 2016. In order to follow the news on exchange programs and the selection process, I joined all the HSE students’ groups on Facebook. One day I saw a post in the HSE international  students’ group that a summer camp in Sochi was looking for instructors and group leaders. They were looking for candidates who could speak English fluently and would be able to teach kids, who had some teaching experience and who were confident to lead workshops in various fields at the same time.

I decided to apply, and now it's my 6th and, unfortunately, last week in Sochi! There are 6 of us team leaders -- 4 of us are English teachers, and all of us lead some workshops. During the first session there were two more fellows from HSE, one of them an international student of the dual degree program.

This is the best camp I have ever been to, and according to the first session kids’ evaluations, they feel the same. I have never had such strong emotions and my summer holidays have never been so exciting, so, yes, it was absolutely the right choice! And all the kids are so nice, so energetic and polite that I can't believe it’s real. Speaking of surprises, when I applied for this job I thought it was a volunteer position, so I was pleasantly surprised when I got a salary!