International Translation Day celebrated on 30 September was marked at SCIT by a series of interesting events.  On the day SCIT held the first in this academic year virtual conference with EC SCIC. The conference was devoted to self-training and lasted 3 hours. The expert from the EC SCIC side was Carlos Garcia,  who has vast experience in interpreting and acted as a trainer in a similar conference last year, too. He explained how to plan the self-training session, work with a study buddy, how to set targets for the self-training and check on the progress. The students found the lesson very useful and were genuinely grateful to Carlos for the tips.

On 1 October SCIT graduates 2020 were awarded their diplomas. Antiepidemic measures had their impact on the usual diploma award procedure, and this year the awarding ceremony and the traditional boat trip took place later than usual.  However, the diploma award ceremony was attended by Andrey Maksimov, Head of the Committee for Science and Higher Education, Government of St. Petersburg, and Yulia Komarova, Vice -Rector for International Cooperation, Herzen University, who both warmly welcomed the graduates. Together with diplomas the graduates received SCIT certificates and books as gifts.

Another meeting of the open seminar Terra Translatologica also took place on 1 October.  This time the participants discussed the work of translation agencies in the times of crisis. The main speakers were Yulia Shestovskikh, a staff translator at the Vosstania, 6 Translation Agency and a SCIT trainer, and Fiodor Kondratovich, director of the LingvaKontakt Translation Bureau.  Elena Tarasova also joined the discussion.

The present-year SCIT students, however, were busy participating in their first mock conference. This is an important milestone for them as they and the trainers draw conclusions on their first month at SCIT – what they learned, how well they can prepare and deliver speeches, how effectively they work with their partners.  Of course, they were excited. But everything worked well for them, each one of them got his or her share of praise and critique. From now on mock conferences will be a weekly event. Let us wish them success!