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The Institute of Energy has been hosting the summer season of the International Academy. The IE team prepared a program for more than 140 students face-to-face and more than 180 students online.
International courses in the field of energy have been held at Polytech since 2016 and include multiple modules of short-term programs: “Electric Power Engineering”, ‘Nuclear Power Engineering’, ‘Hydrogen Power Engineering’, ‘Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development’, ‘Turbomachinery’. Course instructors are faculty members and postgraduate students of the Institute, the latter having once studied at these courses themselves.
Last year, a delegation of more than 50 students from Northwestern Polytechnic University (Xi'an, PRC) visited St. Petersburg, breaking the record for the largest number of students after the covid restrictions were lifted. This year IE welcomed 142 future power engineers from Xi'an and Shandong in person and 185 online, coming from Zhejiang University. Moreover, a delegation from Harbin came to Polytech. They are looking for cooperation in the field of nuclear engineering.
The blended face-to-face-online program was introduced during the pandemic and is still in operation. Politech's partners from different countries choose a convenient format of participation depending on their goals. Equipped classrooms allow for concurrent lectures, making courses accessible and mobile. The IE team expects online learning to continue, but hopes that face-to-face participation will definitely be more attractive to students from abroad..
“We all, I think, were worried about the pandemic. How to transfer our courses online, what opportunities are there in online services, can we possibly make up for at least half of the experience we gave during face-to-face programs? But we did it! Now we design a “hybrid” program to reach as many people as possible. By the way, the program gets more and more complicated year after year. Now we don't just lecture, but also work on case studies for research and defense at the end of the course. This provides a definite motivation and an opportunity to find common themes and problems that we and our colleagues in the energy industry could be interested in. This may result in a joint project, article or international exchange,” commented Ekaterina Sokolova, Deputy Director for International Affairs at the Institute of Energy..
Two weeks of courses do not seem to be a long period, but the academy's program is quite intensive. In addition to educational training sessions, there is a cultural program featuring visits to the Hermitage, boat trips, a tourist photocross around the city and, of course, a Russian language master class. Online videos and interactive materials are prepared so that students can also learn about St. Petersburg and the country's culture.
The last day hosted a big event: the “Guest Speakers Day”. Industry partners presented activities and projects of leading energy companies: JSC Power Machines, JSC Atomenergoproekt and PJSC Gazprom Neft. Such an event has become a tradition of the Academy and is a unique interaction with Politech's partners.
