Go beyond the borders!

Employees of Samara University’s Mobility and Recruitment Office implemented a number of promotional tours aimed at attracting foreign citizens to the University’s educational programs.  The promotional tours included visits to eight cities:  Almaty, Taldykorgan, Bishkek, Kant, Osh, Tashkent, Chirchik and Bukhara in three countries:  Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan.  The events were held on the basis of partner schools, universities and educational centres.

According to Evgeny Chursin, Head of Mobility and Recruiting Office, for achieving the best results, the business trip was carefully planned, “We strived for not only telling potential applicants about our educational programs, but also establishing strong ties with local educational institutions and centres. As part of the events, our experts held presentations and master classes at 18 schools, 8 training centres and 2 universities, where they spoke in detail about opportunities offered by Samara University. In future, geography of these trips is planned to be expanded, for covering the larger number of potential students”.

Anna Kharchistova, a specialist at Mobility and Recruitment Office, stressed the importance of personal communication with potential students and their parents: “It is important for people to see and hear representatives of the university in person.  This makes it possible to remove many barriers and get answers to specific questions.  We paid special attention to the issues of students’ mobility, the city’s infrastructure and students’ safety on campus”.  

During the trips, there were meetings with the heads of new educational centres, where prospects for long-term cooperation with Samara University were discussed. The heads of the centres expressed their interest in developing joint educational projects to open up new opportunities for preparing foreign applicants for admission to Russian universities.

The University’s representatives also shared positive feedback to be received from students and their parents. Many noted that the presentations were informative and inspiring; for example, in Almaty, the mother of the applicant Svetlana Titova, whose son had previously studied and graduated from Samara University, came to the meeting with the University’s representatives. He also fell in love with the University many years ago, after such a meeting with Samara University’s representatives, who came on promotional tours to Almaty. 

“Due to the University, Samara became our second home over the years.  The University provides not only high-quality education, but also great opportunities for self-development of modern youth, my children.  On the example of my son, I’ve convinced that the University is really one of the best ones in Russia and, despite huge distances, I am letting my daughter go to Samara with an easy heart”, noted Svetlana Titova.

Sergey Goryainov, Head of the Directorate for Contingent Formation and Support, noted that applicants are highly interested in these events, “The number of applications for participation in our project of the International Subject Olympiad for foreign citizens has significantly increased”.

One of the University’s main tasks is demonstrating that Samara University provides high-quality education meeting modern standards and high demands of the labour market. Such promotional tours perfectly fit into implementation of this task.