Students spent the whole day taking part in various contests, taking pictures in special photozones, making dancing videos for TikTok, experimenting with augmented reality and moving to the beat of DJ sets. Each of them also received a first-year student kit with ITMO’s merch, an eye-catching shopper and different useful items. 

Over 3,000 students, who entered ITMO’s Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in 2020 took part in the event. This year the event was an open-air celebration hosted at the university's campuses. 

Each campus had a large screen that was broadcasting what was happening at other locations, which allowed first-year students to communicate with each other. 

Vladimir Vasilyev, Rector of ITMO University, visited all three locations, where he warmly welcomed first-year students and presented the university values, with special attention to love. 

We went to the celebration and asked first-year students why they chose ITMO, how they see themselves in the future and what are their plans for their time at ITMO. 

Daria Reshetnikova, St. Petersburg

a Bachelor’s student at the Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations (FTMI), program in Business Informatics

I started looking through the curricula of various universities in grade nine – that was when I first decided I want to study business informatics, because I want to be an entrepreneur. I liked ITMO more than any other university. Moreover, I liked the lecturers listed in the program. And the level of English here is good, there are language classes three times a week. 

Last year, I took part in ITMO VK competition for school students, which gave me ten additional points in the entrance competition. 

I also contacted older students before entering to ask them about their experiences. They told me I simply had to enter ITMO and specifically FTMI, because the faculty is like a big family. Generally, a lot of my friends study at ITMO, and they are very different people – those who ace their studies, and those who have to work hard to get the grades, introverts, extraverts, and all of them say that ITMO is the place to be, that a lot of attention here is paid to team building. 

In other universities, there are classes starting from 8 am the first day, and here we had a whole week of team building. And that is wonderful, because it gives us the chance to meet each other and start studying not with strangers but with people you already know and are friends with. This is much easier and much more pleasant. I really like my study group, the people are very interesting, each of them has their own hobbies. I am certain that they will bring something new into my life.

I am planning to take a Master’s program at ITMO after completing my Bachelor’s – I know that I would have to make my own startup project, but I still have four years to come up with an idea. 

Artyom Kosyan, Saratov

a Bachelor’s student at FTMI, program in Business Informatics

I chose FTMI because it’s the best of what was available in St. Petersburg. 
I specialize in business informatics, and ITMO is the best university in this field, so I opted for it. There were no other alternatives. Moreover, my friend who’s a student here highly recommended that I come here. I am really glad that you don’t have to be a pro at programming to get into business informatics at ITMO – other universities require that you take an exam in informatics. 

As for now, I don’t know what exactly I am going to do. Probably, I will be an IT analyst if I can make it. I haven’t thought about what I am going to do during my studies here, I will simply try to be active and take every opportunity that comes my way. I am interested in sports, I am an acrobat and kickboxer, and I would really love to develop my skills in these fields. But studies are my number one priority, and I will only do sports if I can combine it with classes. 

Apart from programming, I am mostly interested in law and social studies, and I would really like to focus on these subjects. I love humanities but I want to be a programmer, that is in demand now and will stay like this for years to come. It is due to my interest in humanities that I entered this program and not the one in Applied Informatics. 

I am really glad to have entered. But the experience is weird: I have moved to another city, which I don’t know yet. But I was quick at feeling at ease in my study group. ITMO has a unique atmosphere. I have been to other universities on Open Days and there everything is too official, there is no such immersion and friendliness as at ITMO. 

Alexandra Vatueva, St. Petersburg

a Master’s student at the Faculty of Applied Optics, program in Bioengineering and Biotechnical Systems

I graduated from St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University, where I studied photonics. 

I have always wanted to do research and I started looking for opportunities in my fourth year of Bachelor’s studies – that is how I found a position of manager in one of ITMO’s labs, where I am currently employed. I thought it would be wonderful to work and study at the same place. 

Moreover, while working at ITMO, I found out about the opportunities provided by the university, first of all, about the international ones. I was also interested by the fact that the education itself is in English – I think such a diploma is more valued. I also looked through the curriculum and was surprised by the spectrum of soft skills courses. I think those are very important for a future specialist. 

I am now working with perovskites and am planning to continue studying these materials. My Master’s thesis will definitely be connected to that. Generally, I want to develop in academia as much as possible: in theory, in experiments, I want to take part in international conferences and do an internship abroad. This is my plan for the next two years. It is likely that I will enter a PhD program afterwards, but I am not sure yet. 

Nikita Petrov, Yekaterinburg 

a Bachelor’s student at the Faculty of Photonics and Optical Information

I have entered this faculty to deepen my understanding of molecular and quantum physics, to develop in this field and start working there. I want to work with quantum technologies and computer systems, to have a scientific career and to work as an engineer. I am planning to enter a Master’s and then a PhD program after that. 

I have chosen ITMO because I’ve heard a lot about how great it is. Moreover, no other university offers a program in this field. I have already met my groupmates, they are all very nice people, and I am sure it will be great to study together. 

Egor Zdornikov, Kemerovo

a Master’s student at the Faculty of Secure Information Technologies, program in Functional Safety of Unmanned Vehicles

I graduated from Kuzbass State Technical University with a Bachelor’s degree in Maintenance of transport technological machine systems. Here, I have almost the same major – I have only swapped the car industry for unmanned vehicles. I think that the car industry as it is now will soon become obsolete, while IT will take over our lives. For instance, everyone knows Tesla, Toyota, Hyundai – all of those cars are built for the future, they actively integrate new technologies and unmanned systems into their production. 

I have entered thanks to my results in the I am a Professional contest – I was a winner in the car manufacturing track. I only considered two universities – Bauman Moscow State Technical University and ITMO University. And I saw the future and innovation at ITMO, so I am here. 

To be honest, I don’t have much experience in programming and IT in general, and I am hoping to learn as much as possible about it here. I am planning to devote all of my time to studies and start looking for a job later. That is because I am new to the module system of education, I have never encountered it before. But they say it’s a good one, and I am curious to try something new. But of course in the future I would like to work in the industry and make my own contribution to car manufacturing. 

Maria Movchan, Astrahan

a Bachelor’s student at FTMI, program in Business Informatics

ITMO drew me in because of the opportunity to go on an exchange program abroad starting from your second year of studies. It is a great opportunity as you can automatically get an international diploma. I also liked the fact that I can create my own class schedule and choose the subjects that I am really interested in and can really use. It is a very convenient approach to education. These aspects seemed to me to be ITMO’s advantages over other universities – and all that with more manageable application requirements. 

When choosing between entrepreneurship and business informatics, I opted for IT because I feel it is much more relevant these days, it will give me more opportunities to grow. In the future, I would like to enter a Master’s program, too. 
I have some basic programming skills – I went to a special class, where it was our main field of interest. Even though we only studied some basics, like Pascal and Python, I still have an understanding of the field. I can write a program, for example, but it’s hard for me to solve analytical or complex problems. That’s why I felt business informatics was better for me than applied informatics. 

Mikhail Proskudin and Vladislav Kirichenko, St. Petersburg 

Bachelor’s students at FTMI, program in Business Informatics

Mikhail: I chose business informatics because this is the leading course training specialists working with IT. For me, this program was a chance to get into a technical university without a strong foundation in physics, mathematics or programming. So, this specialization was a perfect fit for me. 

In my opinion, this is a field that is highly in demand – for instance, in Germany, specialists in business analytics have a salary of 4,500 euros a month. But even in Russia these specialists earn more than average salaries.  

These skills will be useful when starting your own business. I have a certain plan but I am not sure it will be a success. My idea is a rather unusual one – producing military uniforms. I am interested in this field. And I can see that this is a field with strong funding and investments. 

Vladislav: I only learned about this program in July, and I really liked the fact that it is at the intersection of management, economics and informatics, this is an innovative approach. I would really like to work in this field, and later start my own business. In this sense, ITMO is the best choice because it allows you to go all the way to becoming a true specialist – through internships, assistance with your own projects, the club system, etc. 

We’ve just participated in Introduction Days, where we were told about student clubs: for instance, a debate club, where you can practice your public speaking and presentation skills, as well as meet experts in various fields. 

I still don’t have a specific idea but I hope it will come to me when I start working and taking part in club activities. I am an active volunteer, and I had a small project already – an aggregator-app for volunteering initiatives from different sources, where people could see all of them in one place so as not to spend so much time choosing the best one for them. There are a lot of websites and apps in Russia and St. Petersburg and it is inconvenient to keep track of them all.