Apart from being a PhD student and member of staff at ITMO’s Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations, I'm currently a Professor in Jilin International Studies University in China. Recently, I was honored with the prestigious Best Foreign Professor of the Year Award. This milestone means a lot to me and in this blog, I wanted to share how I got to this point and why teaching plays such an important role in my life.
Being an international student, there are times when I feel I'm experiencing two worlds at the same time. There is the traditional classroom: lectures, textbooks, professors challenging us to think critically. And then there is cyberspace, where AI answers in the form of ChatGPT, YandexGPT, DeepSeek, Gamma AI, Grok, Mathos AI, Luma, and Blackbox are instantaneously available at our fingertips, ready to answer in seconds. Every now and then, the cyber world feels faster, more accessible, and less messy than the real one. But the nagging question remains: are those tools really helping us learn — or just allowing us to graduate without skills?
They say dreams know no borders, and mine certainly didn’t. As a young girl growing up in India, I often imagined a life beyond the familiar — a life filled with learning, exploring, and discovering the world. Studying abroad wasn’t just an ambition, it was a promise I made to myself that one day, I would step out of my comfort zone and truly chase knowledge in a new land. This promise led me to Russia.
After my escape to Vyborg from all the academic pressure, I thought I’d take it slow for a while. But life, as always, had its own plans. What followed was a string of unforgettable experiences — each one putting me out of my comfort zone and closer to who I am becoming.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. For Vladislav Trifonov, teaching isn’t just about fitness; it’s about helping students improve and grow, one day at a time.
Physical education and sports is a class that every Bachelor’s student at ITMO must take for their first few years of studying. There is a wide range of options for how you can complete this discipline, with many different sports at varying levels of difficulty. If you want, you can join a club for a specific sport and compete, or you can complete the disciple on your own time by running or working out at a gym.
When I first landed in St. Petersburg from India, brimming with excitement for my Russian Foundation Program, followed by Master's studies, little did I know that the journey ahead would be both challenging and transformative. It’s been more than one and a half-years now, and as I reflect on my experiences, I see a story of growth, resilience, and a lot of learning.
This semester, I was invited as a speaker to the conference about the new era of education for students, who study Spanish at MGIMO.
During this semester, I got the opportunity to work as guest lecturer for students of Spanish at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
This semester, I was invited as guest lecturer in the course Interpretacion Simultanea for students of the Master’s program in Spanish interpretation at Jilin International Studies University.
