Many Russian enthusiasts at some point wish to live in Russia. The question is how. For students at the undergraduate and masters levels, there are several options worth exploring. I have been occupied with the questions of how best to move to Russia and in what program to participate off and on for the past couple of years. In that time, I’ve applied for Russian graduate schools, English teaching positions in Russia, a translation job with a science journal in Russia, research and travel grants, and computer science jobs in Russia. I’ve also applied to a couple of summer language institutes in America as a way of improving my Russian language skills. For anyone on a similar quest, I hope that my impressions of these various options are useful and will save you some time.
First, a bit about myself. I’ve been studying Russian language and culture for about 4 years. I double-majored as an undergraduate in Computer Science and Russian language and managed to graduate on time after many late and unhappy nights of studying. While in college I always considered Computer Science my pragmatic degree and future career, while Russian was more of a hobby and passion. I enjoyed Russian language and culture more, but at that point had no sense of any real-life opportunities in Russian-related careers, so resigned myself to computer work. After graduating, I took up work as a computer consultant, but continued to study Russian language and culture in my free time and to speak with Russian friends and co-workers. Over time I began exploring possibilities in Russian-related careers (which is a topic deserving of its own post). Just recently, a year after graduating and having started work as a computer consultant, I received notification that I was selected to receive a Fulbright grant to live in Russia for the coming year. In August I’ll be moving to Moscow for a month of training, and then on Novosibirsk for the rest of the year where I will work as an assistant to a professor of English at Novosibirsk State Technical University (click here for the Russian version).
