International Independent University of Moldova - ULIM. Independent Moscow University ✩ MeowW Higher education crisis

Almost every second Muscovite under 30 is currently studying. After graduating from the university, he enters graduate school, or MBA courses, or goes to receive a second higher or additional professional education. And this is not to mention the boom of master classes and public lectures, which tell about everything in the world - from nuclear physics to molecular cuisine.

The thirst for knowledge is mainly satisfied by indie schools. This is a rather desperate generalizing term: it also means the British consortium, which trains the “proletariat of creative industries”; and the Strelka Institute, where urbanists - creators and visionaries are nurtured; and the Russian School of Economics - the forge of "white collars"; and the Independent University of Moscow, full of gifted mathematicians. The Village Chief Editor Artyom Efimov understood how indie schools work and how they can help renew traditional Russian higher education.

The high school crisis

More than half of Russian universities are state-owned. The rest are licensed and accredited by the state in specialties. Everyone knows that they teach better at Moscow State University or HSE than at other universities. But formally, the diplomas of the grand universities are equivalent to any other. Only in 2010 did the status of a "national research university" appear - it was assigned, in particular, to the same "HSE", "Baumanka", MGSU, MISIS, MEPhI, MIPT, MAI, MEI, the Institute of Oil and Gas. And this is not to mention the Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, whose special status is spelled out even in the law "On Education".

it seems to him that further it is possible not to strain. Paid education is discredited by public universities with budget-funded places and unscrupulous private universities, which actually sell a diploma without knowledge. "

What is DPO

The economic crisis contributed a lot to the fashion for additional education: many industries collapsed, and people en masse had to master new professions. Supply Follows Demand: Private school leaders confirm education is becoming a fashion business. For the Russian mentality, this, of course, sounds blasphemous.

Since 2012, programs of additional professional education (APE), with the exception of specific areas such as civil service, pedagogy or private security activities, are not subject to state accreditation. This means that the school itself, and not on the basis of state-imposed educational standards, can determine what and how to teach its students. Graduates receive not a state diploma, but their own school diploma, the value of which is determined solely by the reputation of the educational institution. It is assumed that over time, a system of accreditation of additional vocational education by professional communities will appear.

The refusal of the state to regulate the CVE system forces schools to compete with brands, quality and cost of education. The effectiveness of additional education is determined by how well it meets the requirements of the relevant industry, and the authority of the school in the industry. Accordingly, schools that simply stamped state sample diplomas, collecting money for it under the guise of tuition fees, in theory, should go down the drain: getting additional vocational education "for the sake of a crust" is now, in general, pointless.

Rector of the Russian School of Economics Sergei Guriev recalls that his school "has existed quite successfully without accreditation for the first 13 years, and the European University at St. Petersburg even longer." According to Guriev, "a really serious distorting factor" in the competition for applicants is the army conscription. Vice-Rector for Science of the Independent University of Moscow Mikhail Tsfasman, answering the question about the costs of independence, also first of all recalls the absence of a delay.

Creative professions

The British Higher School of Art and Design attracts many applicants with an expensive but prestigious British higher education and a degree from the University of Hertfordshire. The MARCH School of Architecture, opened this year by the famous architect Yevgeny Ass, who left the Moscow Architectural Institute as a too inert institution, also offers a master's program, developed in conjunction with the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Design of the London Metropolitan University, and a British graduate degree.

A British diploma in itself and even in a package with a portfolio does not guarantee anything to the graduates of the Russian "Britanka" who are planning to make a career in the West: there is enough "creative proletariat" of its own. However, Russians have their own advantage - a fresh look, says Ekaterina Cherkes-zade, director of the Scream School and the Moscow Film School. On the domestic market, a British diploma is, of course, a very prestigious crust.

By Russian standards, all schools of the British consortium are institutions of additional professional education. Ekaterina Cherkes-zade explains that this status gives the greatest freedom: “Many professions that we teach at Scream School are simply not in any registers, so they can be taught only within the framework of additional education. In addition, no educational standards can keep up with the development of computer graphics. " In order for educational programs to remain effective and in demand by the industry, they need to be constantly reviewed.

However, says Cherkeszadeh, in the creative industries no one looks at the diploma - they look at the portfolio. The maximum effort is put into it in the British consortium.

Freedom and independence

CVE schools often emerge as small training workshops for companies that are faced with staff shortages and decide to train the necessary specialists for themselves. In this case, everything is simple with the education standards: suitable for the needs of a particular company, it means a good education. Accordingly, this company finances the school, so it is not necessary for it to earn money on its own.

The indie school is different in that it does not serve a specific company, but the industry as a whole. It should be, as they say, equidistant from all market players. Accordingly, she cannot afford to be financially dependent on any one sponsor, but ideally she should make money on her own.

However, such a school depends on the market and is forced to limit its own creative search to please its requirements. So the concept of freedom unexpectedly comes into conflict with the concept of independence. Freedom is also the right to make mistakes: for example, on an expensive research with an unobvious result. When a school is a commercial enterprise, it can hardly afford that.

Institute of Media, Architecture
and Strelka design

Founded in 2009

For example, Strelka Institute for Design, Media and Architecture cannot be considered independent in the sense that Britanka is independent. Strelka depends mainly on the money of two sponsors - Alexander Mamut and Sergey Adonyev. Education at Strelka is free, and the income from the bar and from commercial activities (consulting) is enough to cover only a small part of the costs. “This is initially a philanthropic project,” Yekaterina Girshina, director of Strelka's open programs, readily admits.

But Strelka is, of course, freer in choosing what and how to teach: it does not train strong professionals for specific industries, like the British consortium, but creators and visionaries. “We have a mission: to change the landscape - physical and metaphysical,” says Strelka director Varvara Melnikova. - We must prepare people who will become leaders of change, primarily in urbanism. Such people should work in government bodies, in public organizations, in business, in creative fields. "

Business education

From the mid-2000s until very recently, there has been a boom in MBA (Master of Business Administration) programs in Russia - intensive case-study business schools for middle and senior managers. From 2004 to 2012, these programs were subject to state accreditation as additional professional education.

Founded in 1991

Vladimir Arnold, Nikolai Konstantinov and other founders of the Independent Moscow University, remarkable scientists and teachers, left the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University more than twenty years ago to teach mathematics without looking back at the standards and methods that they considered outdated. NMU accepts no exams, they don't even require a certificate. There is no schedule of classes as such: they post the schedule of classes - and the student himself decides where to go. At the seminars, everyone is given the same tasks and encouraged to discuss the solution.

More than 200 people are admitted to the NMU annually. Of these, four or five survive to graduate. NMU does not take money for tuition and is solely funded by donations. Its sponsors include the Dynasty Foundation, Yandex, the Soros Open Society Institute, and even the French embassy. "For twenty years, NMU has not collapsed," says Vice-Rector for Science Mikhail Tsfasman, "which means it is more stable than democracy in Russia." At the same time, Tsfasman admits that it would be better for the university to take money from the state, "especially if it were stable funding, not particularly burdened with conditions."

Where to grow

“I responsibly affirm that today independence [non-state universities] does not bring any formal advantages,” says NES Rector Sergei Guriev. He notes that recently, public universities, especially national research universities and federal universities, have received the same academic and managerial freedom as independent ones. At the same time, state universities have guaranteed (albeit chronically insufficient) funding and premises.

“In non-state universities there is a clear understanding of what their mission is - why they were created and why society needs them,” Guriev explains the main advantage of indie education and adds: “In principle, this is how young state universities are arranged - like the Higher School of Economics. and young faculties in them - like a number of faculties of the Academy of National Economy ”.

Guriev is confident that in the near future the first indie universities created from above will appear in Russia, that is, as a result of the transfer of real power over the state university to the board of trustees.

Throughout its history, higher education throughout the world has invariably evolved from elite to mass, generally accessible. Everything else is a struggle for quality and choice of path: should education be public, public or private. In Russia, and above all in Moscow, alongside the traditional state school, private and even slightly public higher education began to emerge. It is they who, as far as possible, satisfy the demand, while the state racks its brains over the next reform.

It just so happened that, having entered the Moscow Aviation Institute, I thought a little and decided that I shouldn't have done this. And, in order to somehow rectify the situation, he decided to transfer to the FIVT MIPT. Well, because why not.

Looking ahead, I will say that the attempt was unsuccessful, and now I am waiting for the summer to go and fail again. However, not everything is so bad, because the incentive to develop appeared, and in the process I met a couple of good people, telling how everything went. And - most importantly - one of them mentioned in a conversation with me NMU... Having become interested, I went to google ...

NMU- the place is very interesting. Let's start with the fact that this is a university with classes in the evening(i.e. it is quite possible to come after classes at the main institute), and it does not require admission ... No exams are needed, no USE is needed. You just come to lectures. And that's all.

Such freedom is compensated by great complexity: if at the first lectures the number of people went off scale, and there were not enough places in a huge audience (I wrote while standing at the first 2-3 lectures or sat somewhere in the corner on the floor / backpack), then by the end of the year there were on the strength of 15-20 people. In the same semester, Galois theory, Lobachevsky geometry, discrete groups, bundles, we also had category theory, which, as far as I know, is quite rare in the general course and completely unthinkable in the first semester. In general, the program depends on the teachers, every year it is quite different.

Somewhere I met an interesting statement that NMU only HSE students, some students of school 57 and graduate students of Mechanics and Mathematics and Physics and Technology ... ...

Second: there only math... In 1 semester, 3 courses are taken: geometry, algebra, calculus. In 2, geometry is replaced by topology (general). In general, the university itself is aimed at graduating professional mathematicians, and they study mathematics there, not applied, but theoretical (fundamental). As far as I know, a program of a similar complexity can be found only in one more place in the country - on HSE Faculty of Mathematics, which, in fact, is based on NMU and was created. But it is worth noting that at the mathematics faculty there is much more communication between students, a kind of mathematical environment, discussion of complex issues, so the level of understanding (and, as a result, learning) is higher there.

Also possible candidates: Mechanics and Mathematics, Physics and Technology. I will not say for sure, because I did not study either there or there.

Third: the university is non-state. That is, there is no accreditation, no state diplomas. There are diplomas of their own, but they, of course, will be accepted in few places. Only in Harvard, Yes. And in the Institute of Mathematics. Steklov... It is clear that the value of all this is more to a mathematician than to an IT specialist, so the only thing an IT specialist should go for is a good understanding of mathematics. And, of course, for the achievement.

However, there are exams there. Submitting them is completely optional, because they will be allowed to attend lectures and everything else. They give 3 main advantages: a scholarship (yes, a non-state university has a scholarship!), The opportunity to use the library and the opportunity to go to foreign. lang (French in the first place, it seems, there is German). Well, again, achievement. Which you can brag about, for example, to the teachers of mathematics in the main university, receiving honor and respect.

This is worth separately, the word " Independent university"is known to any person in Russia who knows at least something in mathematics, and it is not surprising that the teachers of the Moscow Aviation Institute also know him. NMU followed by questions about what is being studied there, and how is it in general. I showed one of the teachers the sheets with the problems, he thought about one problem and after a couple of months (during the exam) announced that he had solved it (I misinterpreted it a little, of course, he hardly thought about it seriously, otherwise he would have solved it right away, I think, because it is simple). By the way, he, by the way, a little earlier, having found a cat drawn by (me) on the blackboard, offered to become my scientific advisor. I promised to think, and I still think.

^ diffur is not mine

What NMU gives in all seriousness, so this is the so-called mathematical intuition... This is when theorems are obvious to you that are not obvious to others, it is easier to solve problems, it is easier to understand and memorize the theory ... You can understand the NMU program only in fragments and do only a dozen tasks from the whole huge number, but this will bring your understanding of mathematics to a new level ... At least, that's exactly what I did, but the TFKP program at the Moscow Aviation Institute went much, much easier compared to the matan program for 2 semesters (by the way, I passed for 5 without preparing at all). And it was not easier for my classmates.

Heller, by the way, also mentions:

I myself sometimes read all sorts of books on applied mathematics in order to have some kind of exhaust from mathematics in the form of cash, and I must say that the study of applied mathematics after the start of classes at NMU has become something completely elementary and not difficult that you can read at your leisure without straining your brains too much.

I probably won't talk about the teachers, because everything is quite subjective. I can only say that I admire them. Great people, great teachers, great mathematicians. By the way, students are respected seriously, which is priceless.

A little about the leaflet system. The idea, in fact, is this: after each lecture, leaflets with tasks that need to be completed are issued. At seminars, as a rule, there is no collective solution of problems; instead, students hand over and explain the sheets to the host, ask incomprehensible moments, etc. Moreover, there is no strict distribution, for example, according to algebra once a sheet was skipped, and another one was without a lecture. By geometry even before the start of the lectures, a zero sheet appeared to refresh knowledge (or to make sure that it is there). Knowledge, by the way, is not at all school level (at least not at the secondary school level), requires a good understanding complex numbers, which is not really given in our modern schools, if these are not mother schools. The first tasks are elementary (like " Prove that when multiplying complex numbers, the arguments add up, and the modules are multiplied"), the latter are rather non-trivial. Well, here is the same leaf, in general:

There is another curious idea that is often encountered: the material that cannot be presented in lectures, transferred to sheets and offered to prove independently. Difficult, yes. But cool.

In addition to NMU, the system of sheets, as far as I know, is used in MSU and HSE.

Often you come across very scary sheets of paper that you look at and realize that you don't understand. You don’t understand at all, despite the lecture you listened to. However, I did not listen.

In fact, sheets are one of the most important things, problem solving is the only way to master some area of ​​mathematics, and here problems are not in the "solve 100 integrals" style, but very different, of very different complexity, interesting and really good. Verifiers are also quite adequate and do not require unnecessary garbage, you can, for example, bring the theorem to some obvious conclusion and not prove further, because everything is meaningless and clear. Or even come up with something that makes it obvious, and that happens, yes. And just by solving a couple of problems, you will find that you really understand a lot, and now you understand the topic, and sometimes even freely.

The atmosphere there is also wonderful, in general I met the words that NMU- not a university, but just a club of interests. For example, you understand that there are not one hundred completely unfamiliar left-wing people sitting here, and you can safely leave your things here, go somewhere and not be afraid that something will disappear somewhere. It's cool, very. The people are going to be very different, they talked, there are people who have already graduated from the university, there are schoolchildren, there are students of mechanics and mathematics, tower, baumanki, mithi, physics and technology. Sometimes it’s a rather strange feeling when you discover that you understand what others do not understand, including from the Mechanics and Mathematics Department and the tower. It is completely incomprehensible how this could be.

There were 3-4 people and from the Moscow Aviation Institute, talked (besides, somewhere in the middle of the year I called in NMU Mayovtsev, having written to the group, a couple of people wanted to go, but I still don't know anything about the fate of their decision), but then they stopped walking. It was fun to learn that one of our teachers graduated from MAI (applied mathematics).

In general, there is an opinion that a large part of all those who study in mathematics are going to go to IT, because mathematics in Russia is somehow not very good, alas.

This year we have

Polina's answer describes the realities of the Russian bureaucracy to a greater extent than the historically established rules for assigning names to scientific organizations. It's simple.

Institute (lat. institutum- establishment, custom, institution) - any organization engaged in any activity. The President of Russia is an institution. The press is an institution. State Astronomical Institute named after Sternberg (scientific organization) is also an institute. And even the Moscow Aviation Institute (educational organization) is a real institute. Almost all educational institutions in Russia are subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science and are directly controlled by it.

University (lat. universitas- aggregate, community) - a complex that unites philosophers, scientists of various specialties and their students. Universities are usually independent and self-governing, often closed to police and government officials. Often, universities that are not located in large cities become “city-forming enterprises”. In the city of Heidelberg, in which I now live, there are 30 thousand university students per 150 thousand population. Usually, it is universities that confer doctoral degrees (in Russia, until recently, this was done by a special body of the Ministry of Education and Science), while institutes can be the bases for the direct work of scientists, for example, a university graduate student is also an employee of the institute.

Therefore, students of real, historically established universities often do not like to be asked how things are at the "institute". A university is more than an institution. But the bureaucratic nature of Russian education and its accountability to the Ministry of Education instead of university independence deprives universities of the status that universities usually have in other countries. For example, Academician Sadovnichy, in order to be the rector of the university for a longer time, sold the independence of the university to Putin - now the president appoints the rector of Moscow State University, not the academic council.

Academy (from the Greek Ἀκαδήμεια) - a scientific community, a club. Usually associated with a group of scientific institutions, the best scientists of which are accepted into the academy and receive the corresponding academician status from other academicians. Academies often publish scientific journals and can be an expert community. Some academies also conduct educational activities. In this case, the academy, in principle, can be founded by anyone, but such academics will be ridiculed (see RANS). Until recently, the Russian Academy of Sciences directly controlled most of the scientific organizations in Russia, but after the 2013 reform it lost this opportunity, and the institutes began to be managed by officials of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations.

Academician Sadovnichy did not sell anything - he only paid interest on the use of other people's property. Imperial Moscow University originally belonged to the state and was created for its, state, goals, and not for the sake of some kind of research and sciences.

This post is unlikely to be of interest to most of my readers, but if you have children inclined towards exact sciences, I advise you to read it all the same.

When I was in Moscow, Sasha Belavin dragged me to the Independent Moscow University (NMU). To get there, you need to get to the Smolenskaya Koltsevaya metro station, get out, turn right, walk in the shadow of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

along Money Lane (isn't it a good name?),

turn into Sivtsev Vrazhek, then into Bolshoi Vlasyevsky, and - voilá - in the courtyard of a large house an inconspicuous Arbat mansion. Three floors with a mezzanine.

Sasha told me the history of this university (he also teaches there). That way, in 1988, in the midst of perestroika, when the ban on initiative from below had already weakened, a group of outstanding mathematicians (see my post about Arnold) decided to create a non-state mathematical center. The goal was as follows. Many strong mathematicians with Jewish surnames at that time were not hired in any decent place, such as Moscow State University or Steklovka. They earned money in different sharashkas, but, despite world recognition, they could not add a worthy title "professor" to their name. This is how the Independent Moscow University and the Moscow Center for Continuous Mathematical Education (MCNME) were founded. A few years later, the original problem was solved by itself (those who wanted to left, and the fierce anti-Semitism that had raged earlier in the Moscow mathematical establishment subsided), but the center remained. People work there not for money (the payment of professors is purely symbolic, in fact, they work on a voluntary basis), but for the sake of a noble idea:
to give a mathematical education of the highest level to the masses. From third graders to high school students, from undergraduates to graduate students, to doctoral students and beyond. And this idea has been brilliantly implemented. I can safely say that nowhere in the world * such mathematical education - systematic, comprehensive, deep, inspirational - can be obtained. Only here.
If you want your child to have a brilliant career in mathematics, this is the place for you. For non-Muscovites, they organize two-three-month summer math camps.

At first, it was assumed that NMU would be an ordinary day university, i.e. will recruit students (who will receive an exemption from the army) and teach them in the daytime. It didn't work, they weren't given accreditation. Therefore, classes there begin at 3-4 days, listeners of lectures are formally students / graduate students in other universities. All comers are accepted at NMU, no entrance exams. And they give a graduation diploma, which in the world has the same weight (if not more) as a Princeton or Harvard diploma. Like this!

Most of the professors of NMU, who previously had to earn a living in hell, now work (in the morning) at the mathematics department of the Higher School of Economics and receive relatively reasonable salaries. The Faculty of Mathematics of the Higher School of Economics is a new mecca for Moscow mathematicians.

More detailed information

Study programs for 1st and 2nd year students.

Dining room at NMU.

Activities for toddlers.

Olympiads for high school students.

Computers for children.

Set for children's summer camp.

Serious uncles in the conference room after the seminar.

Rector.

NMU has a small Russian-French laboratory (named after Poncelet) sponsored by the French Center national de la recherche scientifique. It was here that Alyosha Zamolodchikov came from Montpellier (for a year), and here, suddenly, he died tragically.

The mansion is pretty ragged inside. Mathematicians are not bankers, what is really there. But there are coffee machines everywhere, they give coffee for free. To keep the disorganized coffee-loving mathematicians from piling on piles of dirty cups, the following posters hang everywhere:

MCNMO has its own (completely unique) publishing house.

They published in Russian a book about Felix Berezin, which I published in Singapore a few years ago in English. Publishing a bookstore.

Pay attention to Zvonkin's book. It's just a miracle for kids.

This man in front of me bought a whole box of books.

I did not lag behind him. I stuffed my backpack with books. Arnold, Tabachnikov and Fuchs, Larkin, etc.
The concentration of such bearded men around NMU is off the charts.