International Students Testimonials

Idara Demas Abraham, Nigeria

Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI"

I am doing my Master’s degree on biomedical in English

I have had my bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering in the university of Ghana. And I chose to further my biomedical engineering again in LETI and in Russia because they have a very good system of education and they have a name when it comes to technology. This is why I decided to come to Russia, and I find it very interesting on the Faculty of Information measurement and Biomedical Systems.

First impression of Russia and Saint-Petersburg was amazing. As a matter of fact, I came here and I felt good about this place. It’s one of the most beautiful cities I have seen in the world and it’s one of the best places and good environments to study. You have a good atmosphere to learn and you have good conditions to understand and accumulate a lot of thoughts. And of course in Saint-Petersburg it’s not like in other cities in Russia when everybody just speaks Russian. Everyone speaks English here so you have nothing to be afraid of. 

How did I know about LETI? I was surfing the internet, and then I found LETI and something caught my attention. It’s the first electrotechnical university in Europe anyway and I was like “this should be a very good place to study”, I wrote them and the response was very fast and quick, they were really helpful, answered my questions, told me what to do and I found myself here. The most important thing is that I am doing my Master’s degree on biomedical in English. This is so exciting, not common for universities to offer to teach you in English. This is what really made me come here. I really didn’t have to spend a whole year trying to study Russian language, and I could get the information I needed and everything I needed to be a good biomedical engineer.

About students environment. This university has got a number of international students from all over the world. This is a good environment to study, it’s comfortable for you to find your brothers from Nigeria, people from South Africa, people from Europe and America. It makes you comfortable, you can speak English if you want. To access the level of education in Russia it is just what I have heard about. I came here and I found it attractive and understandable, the only problem I had is that in some point lecturers want to explain things to you but they understand it better in Russian than in English and you try to understand them. If you are smart you wouldn’t have any problems actually. Level of education in Russia is quite good, level of education in LETI is quite amazing as well. Now the only challenge I had in Russia is the fact that you need to know the language. Then LETI did something for us: they had to teach us Russian and they have to teach us in English so we have the basic knowledge to go to the magazine, to go to the supermarkets to buy stuff. It’s easy for you to get stuff around when you understand the basic of Russian language.

About the challenges in Saint-Petersburg and LETI. Well, it’s quite what I expected, but, you know, we want to learn more then we can “chew and pour”. There is a system that we call “chew and pour” when you learn something and pour it without understanding it. This is a part where we need a little touch of improvement. Even in LETI they can improve the level of “chew and pour”, stop people from memorizing making them understand the practical aspects of the course it would be a better deal. But overall I can say it’s a good experience and I can do it over and over again.