Past August, ICEF hosted its Summer Bridge School in Financial Economics – a short-term programme intended for students admitted to ICEF Master’s Programme and for senior bachelor students who would like to prepare themselves for admission in subsequent year.
First launched in 2021, ICEF Summer Bridge School programme has been developed in cooperation with the team of ICEF Master's Programme in Financial Economics. With a duration of two weeks, the School allowed its participants to attend courses to their choice. The Summer Bridge School courses dealt with microeconomics, macroeconomics, statistics, mathematics for economists, finance and econometrics, and were delivered by the team consisting of ICEF faculty staff – Daniil Esaulov, Andrey Dementiev, Georgy Lukyanov, Dmitry Kachalov and Timur Zekokh.
Russian participants accounted for about 70% of the total number, with the remaining 30% coming from Afghanistan, China, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Kazakhastan, among other countries.
Upon completion of the courses and successful passing of the tests, the participants are issued with certificates and, as a bonus, receive expert support from ICEF Career Services.
All participating students, whether already admitted to ICEF Master’s Programme in Financial Economics or planning to do so next year, can be sure they are much better prepared for the programme’s academic rigor and requirements. In addition to enhanced knowledge of main theories and concepts of financial economics, as well as econometric skills to handle economic problems, the School participants were able to discover the resources available for HSE and ICEF that can help them boost their academic experience and contact with the industry. For many, the Summer Bridge School has been an excellent way to experience the master’s level studies, new formats of thinking, unconventional techniques for dealing with tasks, and learning strategies one should be familiar with to successfully complete their master’s studies at ICEF.
Zhang Jie, ICEF master's student
I earned my bachelor’s from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu (China), and honestly, I never did any extra economic or mathematics courses in English before, nor had I taken much time to review things learnt during my bachelor's study so this seemed to be a good time to do it. This summer school has been a great chance to brush up on my knowledge.
The course I liked best was Macroeconomics turned out to be particularly interesting for me. It's more advanced than my bachelor courses and involves some ideas from international finance in my opinion, which I failed to learn properly during my bachelor study in Chengdu due to the epidemic. I think I’d like to pursue more research and do a PhD. Actually I was a little disappointed that teachers we met in the summer school, we are not able to take their courses anymore afterwards. They are really cool guys!
Irina Valishina, ICEF master's student
I major in Global Economics and earned my bachelor’s from Russian Foreign Trade Academy. I want to work in finance and this is why I enrolled in ICEF master’s programme. The reason I chose to do a course at ICEF Summer Bridge School was because I never did English-taught courses before and I thought it would be a way difficult for me to start them in September without having had some practice first, even though my English language skills are fine. My other motivation was to gear up for study after the summer slow.
For me, the most useful part of the Summer Bridge School was revision and reinforcement. We revised the basics we know will be helpful in our master’s study. And it was nice to deal with teachers as patient and approachable as ICEF’s. They never failed to explain more and all over again if we had difficulty understanding things.
The courses I liked best were mathematics and econometrics. Thanks to the Summer Bridge School I finally figured out what I never really got to really understand.
Alexandra Sharapova, ICEF master's student
I chose to do my master’s at ICEF right after my bachelor’s degree, which I also did at ICEF. Students really have to study very hard because ICEF’s programme is very challenging. Now that I am getting used to the pace, I understand I should have studied harder as a bachelor’s student. It wasn’t until my fourth year that I really got the feel of it and I will definitely study hard now to catch up and improve my knowledge of the subjects I don’t feel I know well enough.
The four years of bachelor’s studies have been more than intense, with knowledge coming in large volumes to be digested almost immediately. No wonder it slips out of memory. I can’t say I felt a competent finance expert at the time I was issued my diploma, so I firmly decided, in the early days of the summer, I should do a course to fill in my knowledge gaps. The Summer Bridge School has proved precisely what I needed. Not only have I brushed up on my knowledge, I took a fresh look at the concepts and ideal that seemed evident and self-explanatory.
To give one example, the Macroeconomics course. Its teacher, Andrey Dementyev, has absolutely re-discovered it for me. His teaching style, with emphasis on intuitive understanding, has helped me get the fragments of the particular models into a complete picture.
It was very nice to be guided by my favorite professors again. The Summer Bridge School has also been a great way for me to ease into the breaking-in period, when you have to get back to studies after the summer slow and, in my case, graduation.
