ALaTA students: a new academic year is a family celebration

It is believed that the way you spend the first day of the year sets the tone for the entire year. The first academic year in the master program "Applied Linguistics and Text Analytics" promised to fill the lives of the newly enrolled students with pleasant events, friendly communication and unexpected discoveries, since they started it with a warm meeting of classmates, colleagues and counterparts.

photo from personal archive

The meeting began with live communication and a tea party, where everyone brought something delicious. Each of the first-year students introduced themselves, sharing their hobbies, scientific interests, and much more... Due to the informal atmosphere and positive attitude of those who attended the meeting, they managed to learn quite a lot about each other in a short time. And thanks to unexpected "memory tests" from the academic supervisor of the program Edita Nikolaevna Merkulova they were able to memorize it as well.

The second part of the meeting was slightly more formal. During this part the academic supervisor Edita Nikolaevna and the manager Darya Alexandrovna explained the first-grade students how the educational process is organized at HSE. The presentation was full of surprises for those who had not studied here before: a modular system, 10-point grading, elective courses... Of course, many questions arose. However, thanks to the patience of wise mentors and their attentive care for the first-year students, everyone received answers to their questions.

The students note that during the meeting they became remarkably closer. "Studying is certainly not an easy task, but in such a team and under the guidance of such wonderful mentors, we are capable of much!" - the first-year students believe. By the way, students who could not attend the meeting in person but joined their colleagues via Zoom admit that they were able to feel the friendly atmosphere of the gathering even from many thousand kilometers away and get answers to all their questions. "SUCH care about us is really nice," says Pathomporn Tamrit, a first-year student from Thailand, with excitement.

All in all, the beginning of the academic year became a real celebration for the students, who sincerely congratulate each other, teachers, and students from other departments.