On April 1, a lot of schoolchildren – more than two thousand potential students – have visited MEPhI because they wanted to visit the Open Doors Day of the legendary University. Potential students came to meet with the staff of the University not only from Moscow, but also from St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Yoshkar-Ola, Petrozavodsk, Vladimir, Kostroma, Smolensk, Togliatti, Izhevsk, Kaluga, Tver, Voronezh, Serpukhov and from other cities of the country.
It should be noted that the Open Day in MEPhI is traditionally held in quite an unusual format – without tedious reports and formal meetings. Live communication is the main thing. The territory of the University turns into one big interactive platform that unites pupils and students, parents and scientists, University professors and school teachers, employers and graduates.
The Open Day began with a colorful flash mob, performed by the students of the University Lyceum № 1511. Friendly volunteers offered to take part in the quest "University marathon", which helped each guest better learn the University and feel himself like a student. The festive atmosphere was traditionally created by a vocal Studio "Quanto di Stella", which performed vivid examples of student song folklore.
Once again we want to emphasize the record number of students who came to the Open Doors Day – the Assembly hall could not accommodate all the children simultaneously, so the online broadcast of the official part had to be organized in several classrooms of the University. And it is quite natural: for the third year in a row MEPhI has been recognized as the leader of engineering education, occupies the top positions in the world and national rankings. Student’s feedback from themselves is also important – for several years they have been voting for the University in the all-Russian survey. As a result MEPhI is on the first place among Russian universities.
In the welcoming speech the rector of MEPhI M.N. Strikhanov told about the benefits of University over other higher educational institutions of the country. There are traditionally strong areas of training related to nuclear, laser, plasma, IT-technologies, micro-and nano electronics, space research, as well as new promising profiles focused on the professions of the future, for example, biomedicine and artificial intelligence.
The program of the day included a specially organized briefing where students were able to learn more about how and what they can study in MEPhI. The heads of the institutes and faculties of the University told not only what competencies students would receive, but also invited representatives of the companies-employers, so that future students can directly ask them questions and make sure of the high demand for University graduates. The Scientific Secretary of the Rosatom State Corporation A.K. Budyka, the head of the Department of laser technologies in medicine of IPG Photonics A.O. Andreev, Deputy Director of VNIIA E.M. Abakumov, Director of CNRF research, Aix-Marseille University A.V. Kabashin, Deputy Director General of JSC Roselektronika A.V. Brykin, Methodist of the Research and education Department at Mail.Ru Elena Sanzhiryan, head of international cooperation department of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service Y.V. Konovalova answered the questions of children.
According to the children, the briefing with the heads of institutions and employers became the most informative part of the Open Day.
The meeting in the auditorium continued with the awarding of the winners of the Rosatom Olympiad and the Engineering Schoolchildren Olympiad. It should be noted that the interest of schoolchildren to participate in these competitions is growing from year to year, which indicates an increase in the prestige of engineering specialties, in interest in obtaining engineering education in general, and in MEPhI in particular.
The Executive Secretary of the Admission committee V.I. Skrytniy told the secrets of the admission campaign in 2018. He highlighted such important topics as minimum exam scores, admission control figures, entrance exams, benefits, main stages of the admission campaign, and answered all the questions. All detailed information is available on the official website of the Admission committee of MEPhI.
Getting comprehensive official information, schoolchildren and their parents were invited to visit numerous entertaining sites. There were "Experimentarium" and master classes, scientific festival "Science&MEPhI", the festival of managerial business informatics, intellectual competitions and sports demonstrations, a variety of excursions, experiments in physics and chemistry, presentations of companies at SC Rosatom and familiarity with the programs of specialized lyceums, entertaining contests and quizzes from each of the Institutions. Guests of the event enjoyed a show of quadcopters, show "Tesla Coil", chemical and nitrogen show, a non-Newtonian fluid and the physical show. The very "serious" visitors were invited for lectures on the numerical simulation, nuclear reactors and scientific methods of photography. The Student scientific society of MEPhI as always became the center of children attraction: nitrogen ice-cream and orange spaghetti, a detector radio, working without the use of electricity, and levitation.
Perhaps the noisiest area of the Open Day was the territory where the rich student life was shown in all its diversity: sports and creative sections, volunteer movement, Service of good deeds, Historical club, Media Center, Center of cultural projects and much more. All round there was a cheerful music – here soldiers of construction brigades played guitar on the right, male choir of MEPhI on the left. For those wishing there was a master class from the chess school.
Young guys were interested in the stand of the Military Department: after graduation of it, University students can get lieutenant shoulder straps. In the meantime, future entrants had the opportunity to practice in the assembly of the rifle.
Today about one and a half thousand students from more than 50 countries study in our University. Jordan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Turkey and other countries were presented at the Open Day with colorful exhibits and national costumes. Thanks to good preparation, foreign students are so well aware of the Russian language that they enjoyed communicating with Russian students, talking about their country and study in MEPhI, about why they chose our University for education among all universities in the world.
Throughout the day, students and future master degree students were given a unique opportunity to visit departments, research centers and laboratories of MEPhI, to see the fascinating world of science.
Despite such a busy agenda, we hope that the guys did not miss anything and were able to take part in every event.
