Elena Gapochko

My education here was not only the brightest event of my student years—it continues to help me to this day. Four years spent in a team of like-minded people, both teachers and classmates, is worth a lot. The freedom of choice in subjects, which generates an entirely different type of motivation and attitude to the very process of learning, a brilliantly selected group of teachers, freedom of creativity for both students and teachers, an unconventional teaching method—all this provides an amazing result that at times you don't feel immediately, but sometime later in completely different situations.

It seems to me that I have an utterly different way of cognition and attitude towards life, different from my friends, which was formed precisely by studying here. Yes, after graduating from this program, it can't be said that you have a specific specialty: I am a lawyer, economist, engineer, and you have the opportunity to do what you like and find yourself in different fields. For example, working in a school, I can teach children not how it is written in textbooks on pedagogy, but as I was taught here. While doing postgraduate study at the Academy of Arts, I regularly referred to the knowledge I had received during my time at Smolny (even though my major was cognitive studies and not art). Speaking with my friends and colleagues, I'm able to talk not only about art, literature, and music, but also about neural networks, engineering, film, and even management.