Hey everyone,
I came across an opportunity to spend the Autumn 2025 semester (September 1st – December 30th) at HSE University in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It’s a semester abroad program, and the tuition fee is waived under an exchange agreement with my home university.
Eligibility is for 2nd or 3rd-year students with a GPA of 7.5/10 or higher, and I qualify. It’s open to students from Computer Science, Management, and Liberal Arts, and I’m from Computer Science.
I’m interested, but I have a few concerns:
• Is it worth it academically and culturally?
• How safe is it these days for international students?
• Will it look good on my resume?
• Any tips or experiences from people who’ve studied in Russia or specifically in Saint Petersburg?
Comments
I was at that university about ten years ago and it was an excellent experience for me, both professionally/academically and culturally. St. Petersburg is beautiful, generally safe (but you have to take common precautions like in any major city), and not super expensive. However, I haven’t been there in a long time and thing can also depend on your particular field and career aspiration — I’d check with colleagues/mentors who might know the specifics of your discipline.
You likely would have an absolutely wonderful experience. People are people all over the world.
However, if you are an American; given the geopolitical situation there is always a small chance that you could be detained and imprisoned for use as leverage. Russia is an authoritarian state. While it’s a very small chance, it’s a chance. Also, you would be, indirectly, supporting the economy of an authoritarian government that is blowing up civilians directly, as an intended target, as we speak in an unprecedented and unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state. This warning applies to Europeans as well, but at a lower chance.
I didn’t go to Russia but my university had several Russian students, both full time and on exchange. Nothing happened to them and they generally got along well with everyone. My program did have one woman who had her student visa rejected though, so she couldn’t come.
That said, this depends a lot on where you’re coming from, what your family does, and other variables. If you’re from the US, UK, Ukraine, Poland, or France and have family that work in government, you’re more likely to have issues than someone coming from, say, a comparatively non-aligned country.
Wait isn’t there a war going on against Ukraine or is it Mandela effect on me ? Why tf does any1 wanna study in this kind of situation ? It is a bigger risk than going to US rn :skull:
You want to go for a semester abroad in a country which is currently waging an active war against Europe, consistently threatens nuclear escalation and will use any excuse to arrest citizens from NATO countries to use as a bargaining chip?
Go for it and post us all about it from a concentration camp in Siberia
I mean…. this will heavily depend on where you are from and where you want to work later. To me (located in the Netherlands) the choice to go study in Russia right now would speak against you. If you applied with me with that on your resume I’d expect a damn good explanation why the hell you would want to go there in these times.
It could be a pleasant experience. We in the west have been experiencing dwindling attention spans… I hear that Russia is very proficient in setting up camps for people to get their concentration back. Forgot how those are called
Regarding how likely you are to be detained, I came across a paper published recently by a Russian group in my field, who I looked up out of curiosity. Interestingly, I found the director, who was the main author, of this fairly prestigious institute had publicly expressed his support for students protesting the war some time ago. He is still the director when I last checked.