What you can learn during the lockdown period: St Petersburg University online courses in English
Lockdown is the best time for home schooling and self-education. Online courses of St Petersburg University in English are available on the learning platform Coursera. They cover various fields of knowledge: from language courses to computer geometry and neurolinguistics.
Humanities
An online course designed by lecturers from St Petersburg University ‘Russian for beginners. A1’ (part 1, part 2, part 3) will help studying Russian from scratch or improving it. Each unit of the course consists of several parts that explain vocabulary, phonetics (pronunciation), and grammar. It also contains examples of simple dialogues in Russian.
Students of the course ‘Fundamentals of the Chinese character writing’ (part 1, part 2) will learn about: the history of the Chinese tradition of character writing; the main stages in the evolution of characters; and the great calligraphers of the past. While studying, students will learn to write using animated and static samples.
The diversity of contemporary Russian literature will be presented to students of the Contemporary Russian Literature course. The lecturers will introduce the works of the best writers, as well as acquaint students with the latest trends in Russian literature.
Computer sciences
If you are into digital technologies, you will be interested to learn about computational geometry. This includes computer graphics, computer-aided design and geographical information systems, robotics and many others. These and other issues are covered in the Computational Geometry online course.
During the course Competitive programmer’s core skills, students will be prepared for competitions among programmers, and they will be told about pitfalls in competitive tasks. Students will learn to write an efficient, reliable and compact code, manage their time well, and apply basic algorithmic ideas for real problems.
To improve your skills, you can enrol in other computer science courses. Among them are: The Introduction to Quantum Computing; The Development of Mobile Health Monitoring Systems; and Mathematical Game Theory.
Social sciences
If you are interested to learn about the features of the structure of the Russian business landscape and its legal regulation, it is possible to do that in the courses in Legal and political regulations in Russia and Legal aspects on conducting business in Russia. The functioning of the Russian economy in international economic relations will be discussed in the Doing business in Russia course.
You can learn to understand the political, economic and legal processes in Russia, as well as predict the development of Russian legislation and judicial practice in the course Constitutional reforms in Russia. The course Russia and Nuclear Arms Control will introduce the specific features of Russian policy in nuclear arms control and in the field of Russian defence and security. Students of the course in Political governance and public policy in Russia will learn about the current state of the Russian political system.
Natural sciences
The course in General Pathophysiology will make it possible for you to understand the subject and methods of pathophysiology, and its place in the system of biomedical sciences and history. The authors of the course warn that the course contains shocking materials. It is not recommended for viewing by persons with a weak mentality, minors and pregnant women. Neurophysiological aspects of acquiring the first (native) and second languages, and clinical studies of speech, reading and writing disorders will be discussed in the Neurolinguistics course.
For more details about all of the St Petersburg University courses visit the website of the Centre for E-Learning Development. It should be reminded that after the successful completion of online courses at St Petersburg University, students will be awarded additional points when applying for admission to the University programmes.