international university in moscow

[cmubu.livejournal.com]

hi everyone,

i was wondering if anyone has heard of the international university in moscow. i've asked several people and not many have heard of it. i'm curious if it's a good school (at least for foreign language study), as i'm considering applying for a program located in this school through the american councils. it's a year-long program and i want to make sure i make the right choice. i know american councils programs, in general, are pretty good (from what i've heard)...but this is a fairly new school. thank you.

steve

Comments

[madrumos.livejournal.com]

I was on the ACTR program at International University two years ago for the entire year. As you said, the ACTR programs are excellent, I would definitely recommend them. I also found the school to be great, with a few caveats. First of all, on any ACTR program, you're being taught mostly by dedicated faculty who work with ACTR and foreigners, so the quality of these teachers isn't necessarily reflected in the overall quality of the university. The university is small, and there isn't a ton of interaction with the Russian students, who seem to largely be rich and stuck-up. I found the faculty overall to be excellent in the university at large and especially on the program. The teachers we had were, with few exceptions, experienced, nice, knowledgable and effective at teaching language. They've been teaching Americans Russian for years and years, they know what they're doing, and you will doubtlessly become friends with many of them. International University (in Moscow), as it is officially known, is one of the first private universities post-communism, very expensive by Russian standards (i.e. ~$4k/yr.), and highly regarded overall, being run and supported by the former mayor of Moscow and some other political mucky-mucks.

Hope this helps, lemme know if you have any other questions.

thanks for the replies

[cmubu.livejournal.com]

thanks for the replies madrumos and quem. last question: is the foreign language department fairly large (meaning are there a lot of english speaking students that attend)? spasibo!

Re: thanks for the replies

[madrumos.livejournal.com]

when i was there, ACTR was absolutely the only program using the foreign language faculty. they were paid by ACTR to teach ACTR students. i'm assuming the university would have a regular foreign language department offering various languages (including english), but our teachers are in the Russian as a Foreign Language dept. It is possible, but doubtful that they teach anyone besides ACTR groups during the year. Our groups were about 30 students, and classes were between 3-5 students each.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

I went on the ACTR program this past summer. The language instructors there are awesome.

The politics teacher is completely nuts but you will learn a lot from them. If you have any questions about the program, feel free to drop me a line.