It has been a week since the first fully English taught group started their classes in the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. This year the Department of Computer Science decided to change the ordinary approach to education in the Institute. It was decided to launch bachelor degree in Software Engineering fully taught in English according to the international standards, namely Computer Science Curricula 2013 developed by The Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) IEEE Computer Society.

11 students representing 5 different countries are first to witness this experiment.  It must be said that not only students but also faculty members will have a lot to do this year.

The director of the programme Oleg Zmeev says: “It is easy to say "we should teach a person to learn" However, in practice we barely know how to do that. Our bachelor programme is not accidentally called a pilot project. There are many things we will have to test. Least I can say as an IT expert that in order for a person to learn something, he must try to do something first.

The cornerstone principle we adhere to is ‘learning by doing’. It is common in Western education but still quite new to Russian system. If a theory is not needed for practice, then it should not be taught. We are turning upside down the curriculum and building new a plan. We want more than half of our materials to be mastered via practical tasks.”

To add, the faculty team believes that the success of this project depends on many things including team branding and spirit. The team has its own logo and special t-shirts in black color. The students received their uniform as well. They all wear green, which symbolically stands for a freshman.