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Who We Are?
People
By:
Helen Balabonova
These are some brief characteristics of the Russian
students that were chosen to participate in this collaborative study
abroad program. We are all the students of Moscow State Agroengineering
University. We study in the same department, engineering-pedagogical
department. Our specialization is engineer-interpreter. We were selected
to participate in this program because of our high level of academic
achievement.
Elena Kosova: She lives in the hostel during the
weekdays, while on weekends she sometimes goes to the town of Volokalamsk,
where her parents live. She has an elder brother who also lives in Moscow
with his family. She likes sports, listening to popular music, and she
likes eats porridge without sugar and milk!
Ksenia Zhilko: She lives in Moscow with her parents
and her dog, Gene. She loves him very much and often takes him on walks.
Ksenia likes to drive a car and go to the cinema.
Maria Pospeshnova: Masha, as we like to call her, is
our boss. She is a very responsible and attractive. Everybody in our
group can rely on her. She helps to organize field trips and tries to
solve different problems. She is also a great dancer.
Oksana Anisimova: She was born in Kiev, the
Ukraine. Now she lives in a hostel during the week and on the weekends,
she usually goes to Mozhaisk where her family lives. She has a younger
brother and a sister. Oksana teaches the first year students in MSAU and
enjoys preparing different tasks for them. She knows the languages
Ukrainian, English, and, of course, Russian. She also likes traveling.
Nina Kochurayua: She lives with her family in Jstra,
not far from Moscow. She likes different kinds of sports, going to the
cinema, and dancing. She also teaches first year students at MSAU and
works as an interpreter at a firm. All her free time she spends playing
with her nephew. Her dream is to teach American students Russian
language. She believes they are more honest and kind people.
Margarit Belyava: During the weekdays she usually
stays in a hostel and on weekends goes home. She lives in a military town
not far from Moscow. Her family has a small farm with five cows, several
calves, three dogs, cats and many chickens. She is a very purposeful,
hard-working student. She also teaches first year students in MSAU.
Roman Martinov: He is the only man in our group. We
love him very much because he plays the guitar, boxes, likes to drink beer
with his friends.
Helen Balabonova: She lives in the hostel and on
weekends she always goes to see her family. She has a brother that is
sixteen. She helps him to do his home work and says every time she begins
to help her brother she is ready to pull her hair out. On weekends, she
spends almost all the time with her dog. Helen like to go to the theaters
and plays the piano.
Nina and Lena K. working in the computer lab
Being Chosen
By: Lena Kosova
The program of collaborative education and students
from both Russia and America at Moscow State Agro-engineering University
has been in affect for 3 years. This year our group of Russian students
participated in this program. The eight of us are third-year students from
Engineering-Pedagogical Department; our major is Engineering and English
language. There are 21 other students that are apart of our group that
studies together for all of our fives years at the University.
First, we all have heard about the program before and
we were interested in participating in it. We also knew that as the
third-year students we were eligible for this year program. Being
interested, last summer one of our students, Masha, approached our dean of
International-Education Department and asked him to think about our group
of thirty students as candidates to participate in this program. We felt
like we were good candidates, because we were doing well in our subjects
and, were interested in agriculture, communications, and English language.
Second, our dean of International-Education
Department, Dr. Chumakov, took our group to teach us tractors and to know
us closer. With this opportunity to impress a major decision maker in the
program, we started doing our best, to be chosen for this program. The
group was then required to select the eight students that would
participate in the program. That was not all; teachers from the Foreign
Language Department had to approve the group’s recommendations for the
participants. Our performance in English was the criteria for this
approval.
The approval from Dr. Chumakov, Dean of
International-Education Department, was still required for us to
participate. Finally, after all the procedures eight lucky students were
chosen for this program. I think I can say for everybody, that our
participation has been very enjoyable.
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Field Trips
Activities
By: Roman Martinov
During the last month we have had several field trips
including a greenhouse, Kunakova Farm, Danone Company, Caterpillar Company
and a visit to the city of Sergiev Posad.
The green house we went to is the biggest greenhouse
I’ve ever seen. Its area is 114 hectares and it’s the second largest
greenhouse in Russia. They grow a lot of different vegetables there. One
of the managers said they supply Moscow and Moscow region with
horseradish, lettuce, flowers, dill and spinach. We all enjoyed this trip
and American students said that there are no such big greenhouses in
America so we were very proud of Russia.
Students were able to visit the Kunakova Cooperative
Farm that had beef, dairy and a meat-processing factory. It is 150
kilometers north from Moscow; it has 5000 hectares of forestry land; 4000
hectares of forage fields; 1000 head of cattle, half of which are dairy
cattle; and 1000 head of production hogs for the meat processing plant. I
think this farm needs some money investments to operate at its full
potential.
On our visit to Danone Company, we saw their process
of yogurt making and it was very interesting. They use only natural
components for their products. I did not expect to see such a high-tech
factory here. At the end of our excursion, we were offered to try Danone
yogurts—nobody disagreed. I think none of us ate so many yogurts at one
time before. I couldn’t even look at yogurts for a week after this trip.
But now I’m buying only Danone yogurts.
We visited Caterpillar Company. They produce many
different kinds of machinery. At first we went to their Moscow office.
There we had several speakers (one of them was general director of
Caterpillar in Russia). They told us about Caterpillar’s activities in
Russia. Then we went to one of Caterpillar’s dealers in Moscow region.
They had many different tractors standing there and they were the
best-looking tractors we have ever seen in Russia. The prices are a little
bit high for Russian farmers but I think after using Caterpillar tractors
our farmers will not want to return to Russian tractors.
Sergiev Posad is a small town in Moscow region. We
visited Lavru Sergia Radonezhskogo. It is an ancient monastery. Then we
went to the Agricultural College. It is a college for farmers who want to
increase their knowledge in agriculture. There is an extension office
working in this college where farmers can go when they need consultation.
After visiting the college we went to a private farm. Farmers Galena and
Valeriy have had this farm for ten years already. It was very interesting
there and we think that they are just beginning to develop their business.
Roman working hard at having fun
Professors
Courses
By: Nina Kochurayeva
I am sure that all Russian students really do
appreciate studying with American professors. We were lucky and very glad
to have the opportunity to study with Dr. Briers, Dr. Buffington, and Dr.
Rockwell.
All courses were very interesting and useful for
Russian students as well as American students. We learned Innovations and
Technologies in Agriculture with Dr. Briers, he is from Texas University;
Environmental Impacts on Biological Systems with Dr. Buffington from
Pennsylvania State University; and Planning and Evaluation Extension
Programs by Dr. Rockwell from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
I cannot state that American professors are different
from Russian significantly. However, there are few differences, which
should be mentioned. First of all in spite of the lack of time they tried
to do their best and to give us as much information as possible. They also
provided all the necessary data and information like handouts, student
manuals, etc. Second, they asked us to give them feedback and they did
read it, analyze and make some improvements if it was required.
Our first professor was Dr. Briers. He was very
animated and funny! He was energetic and enthusiastic. Dr. Briers became
our American Dad! We enjoyed the time spent with him. On lessons he
taught us to, “Think out of the box,” and communication skills.
Dr. Buffington was very kind to us! The knowledge we
got after his course was very valuable because we could apply it on the
fieldtrips - farms, greenhouses, etc. Dr. Buffington was firm but fair!
Dr. Rockwell was the only woman among our American
professors. She came with her husband Lee. She was reserved during her
first days in Russia. But then everything got better. The course Dr.
Rockwell taught us required much mental activities because we had to make
projects, evaluation and developing programs.
The most part of work we used to do in pairs or
groups of Russian and American students and at last, we became one team.
All teachers contributed to it significantly. Even when our classes
ended, we continue to communicate with them!
Thanks to all of our American professors for the
wonderful time we spent together!!!!!!!!!!!
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