Andrey Burnosov

Winner of the National Technological Contest, a school graduate from Rostov Oblast 

Path to student contests. I am from a small village near Rostov-on-Don, so that’s where I went to schoolfor the first nine grades. We didn’t have any specialized courses, but I could always rely on my understanding of logic, which helped me in programming. My parents were also always very supportive of my studies and I am grateful for their contribution to my future – I think they taught me to be independent. Thanks to their support, I started doing well at school and, instead of going to a vocational college after ninth grade, I transferred into a top school in Rostov-on-Don to study IT. 

There, my computer science teacher advised me to enter student contests. I was too late to join any of them in tenth grade, but I wasn’t discouraged and signed up for summer and winter schools instead. 

There was a moment when I had to choose where I’d like to study. I could either settle on a local university or decide to aim high – which would mean working hard so that I could win a contest. All my friends said that if I wanted to study at a good university, such as HSE or ITMO, I had to win a high-ranking competition. So, I decided to risk it and train for contests that would help me get into ITMO.

Why ITMO? In 11th grade, I took part in every contest I could think of because they were my last chance to get into a top university. I got lucky: we put together a great team for the National Technological Contest (NTC) in Intelligent Robotic Systems. Daniil Sedov and I aced programming, while Mikhail Andreev was great at robotics.

When I came to ITMO for the contest’s final, I really liked it here: new convenient co-working spaces and a cafeteria with self-checkout and table tennis. It was like a university from the future. I hadn’t seen anything like this in my life, so each new thing surprised me even more. ITMO simply found its place in my heart.

Plans for studies at ITMO. ITMO is a top university, especially in IT, so I am planning to apply here to study system and applied software. Instead of focusing on math or programming contests, I’d like to get into product development. For instance, right now I’m working on several projects on cryptocurrency, including an NFT Telegram bot. After graduation, I’d like to become a backend developer, ideally – a team leader. In IT, many fields are interconnected, so I will be able to transfer to another field if I get interested in it later on.

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Andrey Shmunk

Winner of the National Technological Contest, a school graduate from Novosibirsk

Path to student contests. I am from Novosibirsk. There, I studied at a school specializing in math and physics, so a majority of my classmates were planning to apply to Novosibirsk State Technical University. However, some of them, like me, were applying to universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I really liked St. Petersburg when I first visited it, so moving here to study at university became my dream. My older brother studies automation and computer technologies and I wanted to get into the same field. Having perused the websites of St. Petersburg universities, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get into any of them based on my Unified State Exam scores. So, student contests remained my only choice. Winners of the NTC have the right to enroll at any of the universities that organize it, including ITMO, without exams, so I decided that it was crucial for me to win this contest. 

All students of specialized classes at my school are obligated to take part in student competitions, so I entered this world early, in fifth grade. I first participated in the NTC as a sixth-grader. In 2021, my team proceeded to the finals and in 2022 – we went a step further and won. We were lucky to have an understanding teacher who let us have a week off school before the finals so that we could watch all the webinars from the organizers. I also benefited from my Python programming skills.

First impression from ITMO. Before coming to ITMO for the final round of the NTC, I had only a couple photos of the classrooms online. When I came here in person, I thought ITMO looked like a castle. The university is very well-equipped, especially its coworking spaces, while the older and newer parts of the building are connected with a spiral-like staircase – like in an actual castle.

Plans for studies at ITMO. I decided to apply for the program Neurotechnologies and Programming because I am interested in AI. Moreover, this program trains not juniors, but middle+ developers, which means that I will be able to earn a higher salary and quickly become a senior developer when I graduate. After that, I am planning to complete a Master’s program and maybe even get a PhD.

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Daniil Sedov

Winner of the National Technological Contest, a school graduate from Rostov Oblast 

Path to student contests. I am from Novocherkassk. In tenth grade, I transferred to a top school in Rostov-on-Don to specialize in IT. As for student competitions, I am an old bird – I started participating when I was very young, first in math contests and then I shifted to computer science. I knew I wanted to get into a university by winning a competition.

Last year, I participated in the NTC in Financial Engineering and my team went to the final round. This year in the finals, together with Andrey Burnosov and Mikhail Andreev, we managed to program several robots to move along a platform and lift weights, which brought us a win in the contest. At the NTC, I relied on my experience from all the previous contests I’d joined, so my advice to anyone starting on this path would be to simply get more practice.

Why ITMO? I’ve known about ITMO for a long time. I was aware of its high positions in various university rankings and its reputation as the best place for programmers. For instance, Gennady Korotkevich, a top programmer, is an ITMO graduate, while Andrey Stankevich, a star coach who led the university team to seven ICPC victories, is a teacher here. I am myself an experienced competitive programmer – this year, I won ITMO’s Open Competition in Computer Science. That’s why I think the university is a great fit for me.

Plans for studies at ITMO. Just like my friend Andrey Burnosov, I am planning to study system and applied software. We chose to focus on software engineering because we believe it to be a more interesting field than applied math and computer science. I am currently developing several blockchain projects and I am planning to explore this field further at ITMO.

ITMO University runs the Intelligent Robotic Systems track of the NTC with support from the company Robbo. The contest is open to school students in years 8-11 who are interested in math and computer science, can code in C++ and Python, as well as work with computer vision. The contest consists of several rounds in which participants have to solve tasks related to math, computer science, and programming of robots or regulators. Winners of the contest can enroll at top universities, including ITMO, without exams. 

Other competitions to consider if you want to enter ITMO without entrance exams are the university’s Open Competitions in mathematics and computer science, as well as ITMO’s Portfolio Contest and several others that you can lean more about here. You can also explore our guide for those who want to get into the world of computer science competitions.