Ural Federal University: Students Can Get Additional IT Qualifications
Students of Ural Federal University, regardless of their field of study, will now be able to obtain additional competencies in information technology. It will be possible to obtain such competencies absolutely free of charge by completing a nine-month educational program from the university’s “Digital Department”.
“Absolutely any student can complete the educational program. All students enrolled in Bachelor’s, Specialist’s degree programs of any educational program or Master’s degree program of non-IT profile can take the program and receive a retraining diploma in digital competencies, programming, working with databases and algorithmic engineering. Each category of students will be offered different programs that will allow them to apply the acquired competencies in their future profession,” says Valentina Ovchinnikova, Ural Federal University Deputy Vice-Rector for Project Training and Additional Vocational Education.
Students will be able to choose one of 25 educational programs in information technology. Valentina Ovchinnikova notes that the educational program will be 256 hours, including independent work. It will be 8 hours a week on average. At the same time 20% of the total number of hours will be taught by the expert lecturers and specialists of the IT partner companies. Diploma of completion of the program is awarded after graduation, if the student is studying on Bachelor’s and Specialist’s programs. Masters students will receive their diplomas immediately after graduation from the program.
“Each program has a practical module associated with the involvement of expert lecturers from IT companies. This will definitely help students get really high-quality knowledge and skills,” Ovchinnikova notes.
In turn, Natalya Andreychenko, Vice-Rector for Graduate School Development at Ural Federal University, emphasizes that the implementation of IT programs will use all available training technologies at the university’s disposal so that students can create a convenient training schedule for them. This will allow them to form a systematic set of knowledge and skills so that they can work with digital products in the future.
“I encourage our students to take advantage of this opportunity. In today’s world, having IT competencies gives a whole new level of competitiveness in the labor market and, accordingly, a different level of salary. UrFU’s “Digital Department” is able to give real IT competencies to students of any field of study – from physics to journalism. For many years, our university has been most actively developing the IT industry in Russia and has already gained a reputation as a “forge of highly qualified IT specialists,” says Natalya Andreychenko.
Students in the process of training will have to undergo a comprehensive assessment of the development of digital competencies. For this purpose, an assessment center has been formed on the basis of Innopolis University. The students will be offered tests and cases in accordance with the topics of their additional professional training programs. The results will allow evaluating the level of students’ digital competences upon graduation from the “Digital Department”.