Do We Live In the Future?

Yesterday my old grandmother asked me to show her my gradebook. Just imagine my explanations about online points, electronic documents, and no paper at all. In the end of our conversation, she told me that my stories are the same with sci-fi books about future which she had read in her childhood. So ITMO University shows us that we live in the future!

The ITMO STUDENTS app

When students first come to ITMO, they meet a lot of different technologies that make life easier. For example, the ITMO Students app. There, everybody can check their class schedules with no need to come to university and look through long lists. Students can get information about everything they need — their subjects, teachers and their grades — all in their smartphones. The app even reminds you to get up to the first class and check your grades right after their appearance. One more advantage of this app is the possibility to read about different events at ITMO and join them. All in all, it really helps every student on a daily basis, because when your university is on your mobile phone it is convenient.

Screenshot from ITMO Students app
Screenshot from ITMO Students app

What about physical education? Especially when the whole world is sitting at home because of the coronavirus. Of course, ITMO found a way for everybody to continue these lessons. A special mobile app that counted all your steps and connected with university points was used by hundreds of students this spring. Also, there were online yoga, chess, and fitness classes. And the most popular way to get your grade in physical education was by playing computer games. There were a lot of different competitions in different types of games, so everybody had fun.

Screenshot from ITMO Students app
Screenshot from ITMO Students app

Let us imagine the entrance of University in the beginning of usual study day. There are always some students panicky rummaging through their pockets in panic, searching for their campus cards. If they forgot it at home, they would not come to their lessons. But in 2020, ITMO solved this problem. Every student has got a special electronic pass — their own QR code, which works the same way as the usual campus card. Now all forgetful students can just switch on their mobile phones and go to the lesson.

Screenshot from ITMO Students app
Screenshot from ITMO Students app

One more novelty this year is free kicksharing for students. Kicksharing is scooter rental. These scooters are everywhere in St. Petersburg and they are very expensive but very convenient for those who need to travel a lot around the city. Students need it very much so ITMO gives for all students' opportunity to do it for free. Scooters are rented by special app without any human help. This app shows where are scooters, where is road from one university campus to another and it connects with ITMO student’s app to help ITMO students using scooters.

Screenshot from ITMO Students app
Screenshot from ITMO Students app

There are a lot of different services at ITMO that were made especially for new students. For example, online submission of documents. Even students who have just finished school and go to University can send all documents via email. They should not come to St. Petersburg because all information is on the Internet. There is one more very convenient app for 1st year students — the campus map. There, you can find all university rooms and their numbers. It is very useful because sometimes it is hard to find a specific room.

It was a list of the most interesting ITMO services. Some of them sound ordinary nowadays but only 5−10 years ago it was impossible. Just try to imagine what will appear in our lives after a couple of years. All such technologies make our life easier and they are great!

ITMO Student