Apart from solid background in economics, ICEF benefits its students by giving them the opportunities to pursue vibrant social life. Leia Sherman is in her third year of bachelor’s programme and chairs ICEF Student Council, helping her peers with academic tasks and personal queries. Here’s why Leia thinks ICEF community is special, how graduates provide career counselling to undergraduates, and what ICEF Student Council actually does to make everyone comfortable.
How I chose ICEF
When I was in the 8th grade, my parents’ friends told me they had a son who was an ICEF student. It was from them that I learned why he liked to study there and details such as English-taught degree, teaching staff composed of academics and industry professionals, whose lecture skills were as impressive as course contents – this last point seemed the most important.
Two years later I attended ICEF Open Day to firmly decide to become its student. ICEF offers international education, with standards recognized in Russia and across the world.
What makes ICEF a strong community
The people that I talked with to find out more about ICEF mentioned as its assets academically bright students and stimulating environment. I do find ICEF’s environment conducive to personal development, I could feel it from my first days here. I’ve built excellent relationships with other students and now, as chair of the ICEF Student Council, I communicate with people from different study years and I can say we are a friendly, vibrant community. ICEF has highly supportive people. Help and assistance – whether with an academic issue or communication with the faculty or academic office – is provided to everyone. ICEF operates Career Center. Its team provide resume writing and interviewing training, and they communicate to us job vacancies.
While a high school student, I knew many people from my school who enrolled in ICEF and could use them as my source of information about ICEF’s learning environment, student culture and values that I now share and am a part of. My older peers had been of great help. Thanks to them I knew beforehand about what challenges to expect. They also told me about the best career fields to get into as a finance major and what kind of duties the positions in different companies involved. I learned from them about the challenges of working in consulting. Despite demanding workload, consulting is seen by many ICEF graduates as the best field for career start – the difficulties you survive in the beginning increase your skills and productivity in all subsequent stages. I think it’s great that getting the objective feedback is so easy at ICEF.
After my first year of study, I interned with Alfa-Bank, and every time I mentioned I was an ICEF student, the employees responded by saying they knew ICEF as a provider of excellent personnel for finance industry. Employers know it for a fact that hires with degree from ICEF will not fold when faced with job-related challenges. ICEF enjoys high reputation among the employers – largely thanks to its graduates, many of whom remain part of our community, maintaining ICEF’s good reputation and never failing to answer the career questions they receive from current students.
Career options after graduation
The time has come for me to decide where I want to be professionally, but I am still undecided. I think it might be worth trying different fields, but I am more attracted to the idea of doing a master’s. I would like to expand my knowledge of economics by learning management, business operation and data management, so that I’m a competent employee and can keep my career moving forward. And I also think I can benefit a lot from doing an internship in a consulting company of a banking. The options are many and I need to identify the one that fits me best. Once I know it, finding the right master’s won’t be a problem.
How to make your student life more vibrant
In my first year, I was elected to the Student Council and it’s my second year as its chair. I have many different duties, which I greatly enjoy doing, and I generally like to spend my free time doing things that are useful for others. I often act as a communicator between teachers and students, helping to settle different issues. I know that universities have high respect for students who contribute to the life on campus – that’s something that makes a graduate portfolio stand out, evidencing their being a good team worker, able to take responsibility, source solutions and optimize situations.
There’s hardly a person at ICEF who doesn’t know me. I think I’m lucky to be able to help as a student representative and keep this vibrant communication going
The Student Council hasn’t so far been involved in any large projects, but there are many students who have benefitted from us by getting their queries answered.
What Student Council does
This year, we created a Telegram bot to keep students updated on things like class times, room numbers, exam procedure, duration, etc. After the exams, for students to loosen up and have some fun, we offer art therapy classes, movie nights or fun contests.
Our nutrition board takes care that lunch is served at a convenient time, negotiating also the price and quality of meals. On the academic side, the Student Council channels feedback concerning a variety of issues, for example, adjusting class schedule for greater convenience of students. Student voice matters at ICEF. Our requests are heard, we feel we are treated as equals. In my first year here, when education was moved online, we started to collect signatures in hopes of having at least some of the courses delivered in class, and ICEF responded by returning to in-person teaching earlier than other HSE faculties did.
How to get more out of studying
One thing I especially like at ICEF is the wide array of electives. I did Data Analysis with Python last year. This course is taught by Yaroslav Lyulko and is a popular choice with most students, mostly because it gives the skills much needed in the workplace. This year I’m planning to take a course in SQL. There are generally many useful, hands-one courses that are offered here as electives and can help to hone the skills employers want to see on resumes.
