SESL Invites Students to Participate in Lab's Work
SESL presentation for junior students of the Department of Sociology, NRU was held on October, 25, 2011.
During the annual presentation of SESL its employees told a lot of new things about sociological work to the first-year undergrads.
At first, Svetlana Savelieva, deputy head of the lab greeted the public on behalf of the administration. She told the lab as a whole and focused on the major topics of research, especially on those in which younger students are involved. She also described employment opportunities, administration, employees and formalities one should pass to work for the lab. Svetlana mentioned that in room 109 we have some tea and pastry for those students who are interested in our studies.
After that research assistants who are students of HSE took the floor. Ekaterina Kuldina, 2nd year master student, made a short introduction about scientific research that can be conducted from the very first courses. Ekaterina got her bachelor’s degree at St. Petersburg branch of HSE, now she is at her program at HSE in Moscow, that’s why she knew what she was talking about.
Nowadays ST. Petersburg branch of HSE is on the way of rapid academic development, e.g. one of the leading international laboratories (LCSR) is working here.
The main problem of a young scholar after she/he enters the university is to understand that her/his curiosity has a scientific basis, and to find a way to satisfy it at HSE. On this stage it is important to keep asking questions and proposing something new to the scholars who work in the labs, for example, to SESL, one of the scholarly places where new people are always welcomed.
Advantages of participation in Lab’s scientific life are impressive. One can get help in visiting Russian or international Summer school (this summer Ira Khvan, Vera Titkova, Daria Khodorenko and Evgeny Kochkin experienced it). One will support of her/his scientific interests. Some of the Lab’s employees who are still students, such as Ksenia Tenisheva, regularly report about their results at the international conferences. Young scholars can get advice and data support for their course and final papers. But the most important is sociological practice, and international level of research which is achieved not least of all by the open seminars where researchers from abroad come to establish new projects.
Irina Khvan, 4th year bachelor student, shared her experience and told about the importance of summer practice, 2009 for her professional choice. She mentioned that summer practice is essential not for making final decision on being or not being a scholar, but to understand if you are interested in surveying society in general. It is practically impossible to get the sense of sociology during lectures, one should try to do things personally. It is very helpful to use the opportunity of summer practice by SESL to feel all the particularities of this job personally in the first years at the university. Such immersion into sociology is accessible not only during summer practice. The Lab is permanently involved in several projects which every young scholar can try to work for on various stages: from data mining to writing final report.
Kirill Sukharev and Alexei Gorgadze, 2nd year bachelor students, were among the audience half a year ago on a similar presentation of the Lab. This July they have already participated in Lab’s summer practice in Dmitrov district of Moscow region. Guys told about their first sociological experience and about what they actually did during the practice. They mentioned that all the participants were allowed to participate in several projects simultaneously. They could have studied schools, libraries, poverty, religion or migration – all these topics were covered and united by community studies theory.
Students in the audience were asking questions about the way how people come to the Lab, what kind of work they usually do, what advantages Lab’s employees have. Actually, students come to the Lab in a number of ways. Some of them “fell in love” with sociology after the summer practice, others need help in writing their final papers. Many students come because it was recommended by their scientific advisor, or she/he wants to participate in a certain project, or learns about the Lab from the presentations of its researchers.
The presentation was lively and the students were really interested in this opportunity. Those who didn’t manage to come can read about us at our site or ask any questions straight in the Lab where everyone is welcome.
Here is a mystic video that shows how to get to the Lab in entangled corridors of the building on Pechatnikov Street. Special thanks to Ekaterina Shishova, Ekaterina Kuldina and Fedor Goroganko who were eager to help creating this video.
By Irina Khvan, Maria Petrova and Ekaterina Kuldina