Hi everyone. My name is Svetlana, I’m a third year student of SSU, Russian Philology department. I suppose you’re surprised to see an English text, well, life is full of surprises, hello. It never hurts to read and to get to know something new, isn’t it? So I hope to get you familiar about the other side of philological way of thinking, less official. So why don’t we speak English this time?
I can’t say I’m perfect in it (I don’t know who is), but I do a lot to develop my language skills. And I do believe there are many of us, that’s why I’m writing this text. There is one question that really got me thinking: in Saratov, where can we read texts in a foreign language of our current interest? How many Saratov resources in English do you know? Of course as the saying goes where there’s a will there’s a way, may be we do have several people who manages to write good interesting English articles for Saratov mass media, at least I hope so. But as a Kultura64 correspondent, I’m sure you should read exactly this text exactly in English. And if we need a person who can write in English here, why shouldn’t it be me?
And the thing I wanted to speak about is a State. I’ve just written my thoughts about the state of English mass media segment in Saratov. It’s a little bit upsetting. But we have more upsetting things though. And I’m talking about the state of of open-minded people. I mean, how many of them do we have?
As I said, I’m a Saratov State University philologist. I have learnt Old Slavic, Latin and now I’m learning Polish. And well you know, I want to make money using my skills! Is it a guilty pleasure? I don’t think so. The only thing that stops me is the lack of open-minded teachers in our uni. Do they understand that students get a higher education in order to work and to earn later? And do students do enough in pursuing their goals? We need to get job experience right now if we want to get our work well-paid.
So, then the next question is why am I still studying there? Fair enough. Maybe I’m not open-minded enough myself. Classical education is the indispensable step of socialisation, so to say. And who knows whether I’m right or not.
But what is the state of classical education in Saratov? We have a lot of factors that allows us to say that this kind of education isn’t necessary nowadays. If I want to be an interpreter, can I learn a language by myself? I can. Do I need a degree in order to speak fluently? Doubtfully. I can do some additional courses in order to increase my language proficiency. It is a very ambiguous topic to think. Can’t we say the same about other fields of work? Do journalists need a PhD to take interviews? But still sometimes we need an instrument to reach another level of perception, to see the world from the other side. It’s rather good when a university can be that kind of instrument. On the other hand, it’s rather bad when a university is just a way of socialization or just a preparation for an “adult life”.
So, should we say that additional courses can replace classical education nowadays? Do we need classical education nowadays? Should we listen to the voice of our hearts?
