Alongside with the core curriculum, ICEF Academia offers its students more advanced courses, research and scientific debate opportunities, and better preparation for academic careers. Presenting ICEF Academia to first-year students were its leaders, teachers, and ICEF graduate Arseny Stolyarov, who is currently doing a PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The meeting was opened by Oleg Zamkov, Academic Supervisor of ICEF Bachelor’s Programme. In his welcome address, Oleg Zamkov referred to the excellent progress achieved by ICEF Academia’s last year’s class and spoke about the extra opportunities, one being the places in LSE Summer School programme available to best-performing students.
Steven Kivinen, Academic Director of ICEF Academia shared the news that ICEF Academia is to hold its second research conference. The first one took place last year.
“The research we were presented was of such high quality that we ended up with two winners instead of one. The jury was fortunate to see research projects that are captivating and on highly relevant topics chosen by the students themselves,” said Steven Kivinen.
Faculty members Udara Peiris and Peio Zuazo-Garin mentioned the importance of researcher’s mindset and skills. They also touched upon such useful issues as how to figure out what you research interests are, how critical thinking and hard skills can help graduates grow career wise, and how working side by side with international research teams can benefit students’ academic portfolios.
For Peio Zuazo-Garin, the first meeting with student research took place at the ICEF Academia Conference. “I am glad to be a part of this project and be inspired by the students and their research endeavors. We could make a good team and learn lots of new things together,” he said.
Natalia Arkhipova presented ICEF Academia course syllabus. She gave tips on how to ease into the world of academic research and details of the LSE Summer School programme, highlighting the benefits it offers to future PhD students and the opportunities that come with access to LSE lectures, conferences, proceedings, and workshops.
ICEF Academia lecturers Olga Kuzina, Yaroslav Lyulko, Vitalijs Jascisens, Runjie Geng and Vladimir Sokolov told about their current research and where it could benefit from student involvement. The presentations were followed by Q&A. Students were curious about how ICEF Academia can help them win places on PhD programmes. Vladimir Sokolov mentioned the observation of American professors who note that in some cases, despite the high grades and the volume of courses taken, PhD students cannot always conduct research autonomously and generate interesting ideas. “Communication with researchers has an important role in ICEF Academia. It is a part of the research environment designed to guide student researchers on their path towards independent experience, and a part of the unique skillset that ICEF Academia provides,” said Vladimir Sokolov.
After completing my bachelor’s studies at ICEF, I went on to work in strategic consulting. My job involved generating tons of powerpoints and soon got stale. I enrolled in master’s programme at NES and was working in one of HSE’s laboratories in parallel to prepare for a PhD. That was the best decision that I ever made in my life. I was admitted to all the programmes I applied and opted for the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I really like the interaction pattern existing here between students and their research supervisors. They are putting every effort for us to make our first steps as independent researchers. And we also work as salaried teachers here, spending the rest of the time doing research and networking.
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