Life Navigation 3.0 Course

The purpose of this course is to help participants discover their dreams and goals, make their own self development plan, and start taking steps towards their desired future. While all the other courses are brand new, this one was offered in previous years but with some new adjustments. The course will run for eight weeks. Some of the special additions to the course this year include learning to prepare a CV, and a special 21st century skills block. There’s also a support chat in Telegram prepared for the course, so that the participants can share how the course is helping them in life.

The courses will be held from 12 September till 31st October each Tuesday evening 6.30pm to 9pm.  There will be a special workshop in advance of the courses which will be held on 11 September at 7pm, called “How dreams become goals, and how goals become a reality”. At the workshop you can get to know more about the program and find out how to create and achieve your goals. Registration for the workshop is through this link (in Russian).

“Metaskills Leadership” Course

The course “Metaskills leadership” is a new one for this season. The eight-week course is part of the “Conscious leadership” program which is run by the school of metaskills and metaversity. The course is designed for anyone to participate, however, for ITMO students it’s the first stage in a long-term program. After this course there will be recommendations to participate in a variety of other events. During the course, participants will develop 8 metaskills through practical exercises. These skills are: awareness (the ability to focus on your “inner” self, thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and observe them at any point in time), empathy (ability to feel, and intuitively understand what another person is going through at any point in time), flexibility of behaviour (ability to choose and implement different methods of action depending on the situation), integrated thinking (ability to combine analysis and synthesis, to see and consider all the integrated diverse influencing factors on a situation, external and internal, individual or collective, manifest or not manifest), attentiveness (ability to control your attention: expand the scope, to focus, to concentrate, to keep, and to switch to others). Each class will be focused on developing one of these particular metaskills.

The classes will be held from 21 September to 9 November. Each Thursday evening from 6.15pm to 9pm. There will be two meetings held before the course starts. An intro meeting will be held on 11 September from 6.30pm to 9pm called “Leaders in a Modern World”. At this meeting you can get to know which metaskills are needed today for a successful and happy life. The second introductory event will be the diagnostic workshop “My path to leadership”, which will be held on 18 September and starts at 6.30pm.

Before the course, the organizers will diagnose the leadership qualities of each participant. The diagnostic procedure consists of a series of tasks in small groups. In each group there is an observer. While the participants in the groups are doing exercises, the observer notes on a checklist the behaviour of each participant. This process allows for an objective evaluation of how the person acts in a new environment and with new challenges. Registration for the workshops and course is available on this link (in Russian).

Based on the results of the preliminary meetings, the organizers expect that there will be about 40 students. After the diagnostic procedure, each participant will get access to their portfolio in the Metaversity, where they can keep track of their progress.

Why this course is special for students

After completing this course, each student will get a recommendation about how to continue their development and which courses to participate in come November and December. If the student continues their path, then in December, they can participate in a repeat diagnostics, after which the best candidates will have interviews for internships in companies such as Gazprom, Sberbank (and possibly Yandex, Rocketbank, Kaspersky). You can vote for the company you want to see on the list on the Personal Development center group. Internships will take into account the professional profiling of the student.

Training Game “Happiness as the Key to Personal and Professional Success”

In past years, the PDC created courses and workshops, however, in this year it was decided to introduce a new format of interaction with participants and to launch a series of trainings. The first will be a single-day training game “Happiness as the Key to personal and Professional Success” which will be held on 23 September from 10am to 5pm. Registration for the training is available at this link (in Russian).

Large organizations have carried out studies revealing the relationship between effective work and the happiness of staff. It turns out that happy people work better, they’re ready to work more and intensively. From the point of view of the persons themselves, they had strength left on other aspects of life when they took pleasure from their work. There are a number of energy sources we can use, and these are also discussed at the training.

Developing the ability to work with different energy sources, we can turn our business into what gives us strength and not just takes it away. Amongst the different sources of energy are: ability to see meaning in your work, optimism as a thinking strategy, a flow as a special condition in which work is done quickly, easily and effectively.

“Businessman or Manager” training

Today, most people under the age of 30 are not sure whether to build a career or develop their own business. Most people don’t know the difference between these two areas, and in both situations you need to know how to manage. At the training “Businessman or manager”, which will be held on 30 September from 10am to 5pm, practice and career consultants will talk about 2 different paths which require different competencies. The training will help participants distinguish between these two different paths, and, through a series of exercises, understand which one each participant is closest to and which skills they already have and which ones they need to develop. The training will increase awareness and help students take the first steps. Before the training, there will be an introductory workshop “Working in a corporation or in your own business” (25 September 6.30pm-9pm), where you can find out more about the training and how working in a company differs from having your own business. Registration is at this link.

At the end of each of the courses and trainings, participants will get a special certificate from ITMO University’s Personal Development Center.