In 2007, Olga graduated from the Department of Journalism of NSU and started working as a correspondent for a news website. In 2012, she became editorial assistant for regional projects.
鈥淎fter I graduated from a specialized school for blind and visually impaired children, NSU was a perfect chance to not only get a higher education, but also to integrate into the world of ordinary and healthy people and be in every way on an equal footing with the other students. When submitting my application to NSU, I was only thinking about the studies. That I would get much more than higher education I understood only later on.
I enrolled at a rather specific faculty for a scientific University 鈥� the Department of Journalism. There I received, in my opinion, an excellent general education in the humanities. I am a little bit of an historian, philologist, and a tiny little bit of a literary scholar. However, the Department of Journalism does not make journalists of us. 90% of what I know about my profession, I learned from practical experience, when I started to work. Thinking is what the university taught me.
My years of studies became an unforgettable period of my student life in Akademgorodok. It is also the student community worth coming here for. It is the people it has been interesting for me to spend time with for 13 years now. Overall, NSU has given me so much that it is hard to make a list, the University really has changed my whole life, no matter how presumptuous it might sound. Today I cannot even imagine who I would have become if I stayed in my small home town. And I am not only talking about my profession, but about my attitude toward life in general. Here, in Akademgorodok, life has become interesting to me; here I understood that my possibilities are not limited at all鈥�.
Denis graduated from the Department of Economics and Law at the Faculty of Economics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the translation agency 鈥淢onoton鈥�. His team includes nearly 2,000 translators from 52 countries, and the agency is currently working on projects for large Russian and foreign companies.
鈥淒uring the 5 years of my studies at NSU, many interesting things happened in my life. And after University as well. Moreover, I can compare a life confined to home and a normal one. I would add to the University鈥檚 motto, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 make you smarter, we teach you to think鈥�, 鈥溾�e teach you to think and to become a freer person!鈥�
It is incredibly difficult to be free, from physical barriers, prejudice and preconceived ideas, and also from your own mentality. I still remember how one day, during spring 2005, as I was strolling around the University a woman was coming in our direction with a five year old child, when he poked me and shouted: 鈥淢ummy, look at the cripple!鈥� The woman, not knowing what to answer (and whether she should answer anything at all), or out of an instinctive reaction, dragged the kid away from with a disgusted face. The 鈥渙utside鈥� world then seemed to me somewhat hostile, rather fearful and distrustful, definitely cruel. However, at the University I felt comfortable. On the one hand, I was not the first participant in this experiment and people already had got used to us. On the other hand, there was no emphasis on my difference from others. Thanks to the University policy, I adapted easily and quickly to students, many wonderful people appeared in my life and helped me to step by step and further and further step out of my comfort zone and discover the world. To this day, with many of them, we are still pushing back the limits of what is possible.
Without University, they would not have been in my life, and I would not have become a freer person鈥�.
Elena graduated from the Faculty of Economics (Department of Economics and Law.) She works as a senior legal adviser at NSU and as a senior lecturer at the Department of legal support for a market economy.
