On 17 June, the graduates of the semester courses within the project “Igrosfera” were awarded certificates. The ceremony was held online. Among the best graduates of the courses were students from Voronezh State University.
Dmitry Smyslov, Vice President of HR and educational projects at Mail.ru, opened the ceremony. He told the students how to build a successful career in a situation of uncertainty.
“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, people all over the world had to find new ways of working, and some people were flummoxed. Such turbulence is not a new thing for Internet businesses. And the fact that our colleagues were able to adapt and to turn “uncertainty” into particular actions means that there is nothing to be frightened of. It is important to be flexible in any situation. However, what is flexibility and how can you characterise it? Firstly, you have to be able to give up unsuccessful initiatives and try new ones, leaving behind things that had gone wrong in the past. Secondly, you have to be resilient and to never stop. In my opinion, flexibility of mind is comprised of a number of qualities. These are curiosity, open-mindedness, and adaptability. Also, you have to be able to use your analytical skills and intuition to pick up what really matters out of the flow of information that surrounds you. And, of course, you have to be ready to learn all your life. To my mind, a person's fundamental education is important. If you have some basic knowledge to rely on, it is much easier to develop practical skills. Extended knowledge will help you be successful in any situation. I would like to wish you to keep the faith in these challenging times and to be afraid of nothing. You should remember that a strong character will help you be efficient under any conditions.”
Sergey Khatenkov, the Head of MRG game studio in Voronezh, talked about the advantages of the joint training of specialists and the huge potential of the programme:
“We have been cooperating with each other for three years and this is wonderful. Our course is divided into two areas: “Testing Game Development Projects” and “Development of Unity Games”. Our studio mostly deals with the development of mobile projects and video games. We have been present on the market for 14 years. Once we had an idea: why don’t we share our knowledge and experience with other people? It is such fun to create video games! When playing games developed by our company people get new information, have fun, and get a chance to compete with each other and interact. At the end of the course, our students give presentations of their projects. I am very glad to see that their level and quality has increased considerably over the three years. In other words, those who are interested not only in playing video games but in creating them, should come and join us!”
Konstantin Fedutinov, the Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics of Voronezh State University, said that an interest in video games can grow into a career:
“The admission campaign has almost started at universities. Students who spent hours playing video games in their childhood now believe that they can create cooler and more technologically advanced games. So they get involved in Information Technologies. And Mail.ru Group and VSU help them to grow professionally!” The certificates within the field “Testing Game Development Projects” were awarded to Vasily Rezunkov, Natalia Yaroslavtseva, Nikita Burmistrov, Artem Kondratkov, and Mikhail Ulansky.
Within the field “Development of Unity Games”, the certificates were granted to Maxim Grebenuk, Angelina Kargaltseva, Vladislav Kolupaev, Evgeny Kravchenko, Alexander Palagutin, Vladislav Sobolev, and Maxim Falaleyev.
