• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

Kate Chernyh on student exchange: a voice message from Scotland

Kate Chernyh works at the Laboratory as a research assistant and studies in the 4th year of her bachelor’s degree “Sociology and social informatics”. She went to study abroad in Autumn and now she is studying the basics of App Design at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield.Follow the link below to read the interview with Kate. Why is it better to study half an hour from London than in the capital? Was it difficult to get used to English communication, given the British accent peculiarities?

About the country and university choice 

Actually, I did not plan to apply for the student exchange program. But at one point my friend, a 1st-year Master’s student, said that I should use this opportunity because graduation is soon. I was finishing my bachelor’s degree, and she was a 2nd-year Master’s student. I thought that I should try to apply for the exchange program,no matter how scary it was. 

And even if I failed, nothing terrible would happen. Initially, I approached the exchange program from the position "Why not?". I had concerns about my achievements, that I had too low GPA. So, my approach was just to try. As a result, everything turned out so that I went to student mobility. Yes, a very positive outcome.

As for choosing the university… I have a special love for England. That is why I knew that if I applied for a student exchange program I would try to go to England. I like this country, I visited it several times as a tourist, but I wanted to try living here. That’s why I have chosen England. 

However, I did not have enough time to pass IELTS because I applied to the exchange program too late. A lot of universities in England require this exam, that is why I have chosen the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield. Confirmation of English level here is a certificate from the university, signed by any person in authority. That is how I have chosen the university and appeared here, in Scotland. 

Studying expectations

I knew the descriptions of all courses on which I enrolled. And I knew that for the majority of courses I already have certain skills. So, I did not worry about the content of courses, I was confident enough in my abilities. What I did really care about was the English language. Surely, I had the experience of studying in English at HSE university. But here the situation was completely different, there were native speakers. Moreover, it is known that the British accent can be very specific and unclear initially. That is why I really worried about communicating and studying with native English speakers. 

But everything turned out well, I understand everything at lessons and I can easily communicate with my classmates. Maybe it is because I have been studying English for three years at HSE University.

As for the expectations about the skills that I will learn. I do not think that they are significantly different from those that HSE offers. I chose educational courses that correspond to the HSE curricula because our studying office requires this. So, courses are not super unusual. My favourite course is User-centeric design for applications. This course teaches how to design applications in a way that makes them user-friendly. The design here is not about writing code and putting pictures in the right place of the code. But it includes the following issues: how to create the list of functions, and where to place the right button, so people do not need to search for it too long. And it is very interesting how people use an application, which patterns they follow, where and what they prefer to click, what they like and dislike, and what they grasp and do not understand. So, it is not just about the shape of the button, but also about how people think and use an application, that is why I really like it.

First impressions

My university is located 20 minutes away by train from London. Initially, I got a bit upset because I arrived in a new country, I saw big London and I realised that I wasn’t going to live there. But now I understand how right and good it was to go to a university that’s not in the heart of London. Because London can be very overwhelming. The last two times I went there, I was emotionally devastated because I prefer quiet places with few people in there... And London, of course, is a huge crowd of people, where there are no quiet places. So now I’m very happy that I live in the suburbs, where there is a lot of free space, and parks, where you can walk and just sit on the bench alone. I’m happy with the location of where I live.

How do they celebrate Halloween in England?

I caught Halloween, but I am not a big fan of parties, so I haven’t been to any of the parties. Nevertheless, it’s quite a popular holiday here, and they start preparing for it in advance. I arrived in England at the end of September and shelves in shops had already been stocked with Halloween goods, which surprised me because it was more than a month before the holiday. Here the preparation for holidays is taken seriously enough. On the feast day of Halloween, there were a lot of parties both on campus and in the city where I lived, and in London too. But Halloween was somewhere in the middle of the working week, so I did not really want to enter any party.

What to do in your spare time?

I have a lot of free time here because lessons are only four days a week. Half of them are online, so I have enough time to explore England and Great Britain. I’m trying to take full advantage of this time and visit other cities besides London and Hatfield, where I live.

At this moment I’m recording a voice message from Scotland. We’re here for the weekend. Well, not the weekend, but the holidays. Here in almost all universities at the end or in mid-November, there is a week without lessons on which you can repeat materials and every topic that was covered before, you retake failed tests if they were. So, yeah, it’s like a mini holiday.

About classmates

The university is very multi-ethnic, I think that most of the students here came from other countries, so in terms of cultural exchange, it is a very cool experience. Group tasks are not as common here as in HSE, so out of the five courses, I had only one with a group project when I closely communicated with my classmates. I worked with two girls from France, and we had a great project, but sometimes it was hard to build communication because we used different platforms for communication, designing slides, and reports. We had to find compromises

What did really surprise me in terms of the educational process is how much privacy is valued. We could not contact one of the participants of the group project and asked the teacher to give us the email of this person. The teacher replied that, unfortunately, he is not allowed to share such information because it is a violation of privacy. All communication between students is carried out through the educational platform, and if you are ignored there, then most likely you will never find this person because few people know each other in person.