On 1 September SCIT celebrated the commencement of the new academic year.

Irina Alexeeva, SCIT Director, welcomed the new students with such words, “You will face difficulties, but you’de better overcome them with a smile. You will turn different people in a year’s time. Today is the first day on the way of serious changes, but for it to happen you have to put in your own efforts. Any quality education, and not in the field of translation only, is self-education.  We have come to this world with the only purpose – to learn it and one’s own place in it,  and such self-discovery is the discovery of the world”.

The new students were welcomed by Nikolay Lukichev, the Counselor of the Russian MFA in St. Petersburg, and by the trainers Yury Shashkov  and Sergey Afonin. They wished the novices to successfully start on the new stage in their personal development and strengthen the group community. The trainers remarked that the more effort would go into the training, the less stressful the professional life would be in the future.

Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director, underlined, “Your professional success will depend not on the knowledge you will acquire, but largely on how united you will be as a collective, how good you will be for each other as colleagues and friends “.

SCIT’s recent graduates and the trainers now engaged at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok greeted the new students, as well the graduates from previous years from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and even New York. Alexander Pankov, Herzen University graduate and presently editor at the Russian Verbatim Reports Section at UNHQ, told the newcomers about the work and possible internships in the UN in the UN. The all stressed that the School years gave knowledge as well as close friends and reliable colleagues. Angelina Pavlova, this year’s graduate, wished the new cohort a productive year, to support each other in any adversity and to lose no time at SCIT.