Tartu University is one of the largest and oldest universities in Estonia, it is an “ancestor” of Voronezh State University that sprouted from Tartu University and started to develop independently in 1918. Every year, our students have a wonderful opportunity to complete exchange programmes at VSU university partners abroad. One such university is the University of Tartu (Estonia).
A third year student of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology Oxana Trapani has just returned home after a term at Tartu University:
‘I had two goals for this internship: first of all, to brush up my English and secondly, to collect material in English for my future course paper in Lexical Semantics (category of state). I chose to study the following subjects at the faculty of Philosophy: Business English, Course of German Grammar (on the basis of English), English for Advanced Learners, and American English.
Sometimes Estonia is called E-stonia, because of the fast development of information technologies and their introduction into all spheres of life. Estonians can vote, do the shopping online, and pay transport fares by a credit card. As for studies, the electronic system Moodle is very efficient at Tartu University. With its help you can choose courses, send papers to be checked by your teacher and receive an alert if a class is cancelled. What’s more if a student misses a class, they can find all materials and homework tasks there. The university library uses its own electronic system ESTER that can be used to renew a book you borrowed from the library or order a book from another city if it is not available at Tartu library.
As for extracurricular time, Tartu has an International student organisation ESN (Erasmus Student Network) which organises various events for foreign students. For example, they held a Food Festival, during which you could try traditional dishes of different countries, they also organised sightseeing tours of Tartu and other Estonian cities. I also took part in a Russian-English tandem and helped students from different countries learn Russian.
A term in Estonia is a great opportunity to delve into a foreign culture and language, enhance your presentation skills, learn more about another system of education and improve your English and German.
