News

Final conference for graduates 2023

Mock conferences are an inseparable part of the training process at SCIT. Starting October, students take part in weekly mock conferences. As a rule, these conferences are devoted to topical issues of international affairs  and are based on actual working scenarios. All in all,  there were 33 mock conferences in 2022/23. But among these there is one conference which stands out and requires special preparation on the part of the students. This is the conference for the Russian MFA representatives. This year Herzen university welcomes Sergey Gritsay, Head of the Linguistic Support department in the Russian MFA, and Vladimir Kuznetsov, Head of the UN Information Centre in Moscow.  The purpose of their visit is to assess the students’ level of preparation and estimate the potential candidates for the jobs with the Russian MFA or the UN. The topic for the conference was chosen carefully: Russian Foreign Policy as a set of mutually reinforcing engagements. Multiple vectors of the Russian foreign policy are high on the political agenda today, and the speeches at the conference touched upon various issues of the problem.  The students worked both consecutively and simultaneously showing their skill in all their lanuage combinations. Let us hope they keep the SCIT quality standards up high and will deserve the hard earned praise from the MFA official. A job offer will be even better!

The representatives of the translation agencies AKM-Vest and Roid also attended the conference. They also evaluated the graduates’ potential from the viewpoint of empoyability. Maksim Berendyaev, Director of AKM-Vest, remarked that the standards of quality in the free market are as high as in institutional translation and interpreting, and the aspirants have to meet the expected quality standards. After the conference the businessmen  had a separate meeting with the graduates to tell about the state of affairs in the industry which is meant to help the grads find their way around once they are out of School. Let us wish them luck!

Finals are over!

The final examinations at SCIT are over! They took the whole week from 19 to 23 June during which the students took exams in translation and sim and consec interpreting with their two working  languages. It certainly was a difficult time, full of emotional and physical strain. The examination board included SCIT trainers and an observer from the UN Kirill Kasyanov.  The students, to their honour, coped well with the exams and showed good results. Some of them, à propos, have taken the UN language examinations. Ahead are the internships in the language services of international organizations and translation agencies, and the nearest future holds the festivities – the diploma award ceremony and the boat trip. Our congratulations to the graduates and trainers!

Meeting with Timofey Mineev, MFA Interpreter

On 24 May SCIT students met Timofey Mineev, MFA interpreter and SCIT graduate of 2018. The meeting was more of a talk than a master-class: Timofey told about his experience in the Russian MFA, gave some practical advice, shared some curious cases.  The informal atmosphere of the meeting was conducive to asking  questions, and the students did ask a lot of questions about getting a staff position in the MFA of Russia, and the working routine, and what not.

It is the fist time Timofey has come to SCIT after graduation, and we thank him for finding time for it. We hope, he will continue the good practice of regular meetings of SCIT graduates and current students, and it will strengthen professional and friendly ties among the generations of SCIT graduates.

P.S. A CD with Timofey’s music was an additional nice surprise for Director Irina Alexeeva 🙂

Master-class of Andrey Falaleyev

On 20 April the SCIT students had a master-class from Andrey Falaleye which the master had promised to hold at the previous meeting. This time the focus was on practicing the skills in simultaneous interpreting. Following his own practice technique, Andrey subjected the students to a three-hour intensive interpretation marathon working on their reaction, expression and stamina. The students were understandably tired, but expressed sincere gratitude to the master himself as well as to the School administration for making it happen.

SCIT strengthens ties with MGIMO

From 12 to 15 April SCIT trainers, represented by Deputy Director Angelique Antonova and  Professor Liang Cuizhen, gave a sewres of master classes in consecutive interpreting from Chinese and English for the students of the MGIMO Department of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Laotian languages.  SCIT specialists spoke about the methods of teaching consecutive interpreting practiced at SCIT. The Department Chair Olga Maslovets noted that such exchange of good practices and training tips is very useful and contributes immensely to boosting the trainers’ professional expertise.

Also Angelique Antonova and Liang Cuizhen held a meeting with Kirill Barsky, Chair of the Department of Diplomacy, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, MFA Ambassador at large (2018 till present),  Russia’s Ambassador in Thailand and Russia’s Representative in ESCAP in Bangkok (2014-2018). Mr. Barsky confirmed  that the efforts to increase the number of language specialists with Chinese are very well-timed. Today, when the vector of political activities slants to the East, securing effective communication between nations becomes of primary importance.

We hope that the master classes from SCIT trainers in MGIMO will become a good tradition, and the ranks of interpreters with Chinese will effectively grow!