As in Cambridge and even better

"Chess" seating, small number of listeners, mandatory wearing of masks: the Creative Semesters in Polytechnic University started in the White Hall in compliance with all safety requirements.

The unique educational program of musical and aesthetic education of new generation engineers has been functioning at SPbPU since 2006. Meetings with symphonic orchestras and opera performers, acquaintance with masterpieces of classical music in a technical university have become a habit. “The Polytechnic have an obvious advantage,” Boris KONDIN, the author of the project and head of the Directorate for Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity, is sure. “I know firsthand that no Cambridge graduate will receive a diploma if he/she has not attended a certain number of concerts and exhibitions. We are also interested in improving the overall cultural level of our students, so we organize concerts inside the university - in the White Hall. It’s not just concerts, it’s training in listening and understanding classical music, to be able to talk about it and about the feelings it evokes.”

Polytechnic University invited musicians of the CreatoProject Youth Orchestra under the direction of Ivan SHINKAREV and professor at N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory I.I. Igor ROGALEV.

“I have never expected that Polytechnic University has such extraordinary classes,” said Kristina CHUNEYEVA, a freshman at the Institute of Art. “I am very impressed, and I think that emotions will overwhelm many of us for a long time to come.”

“My task is to make young people think, help them hear the composer’s message, learn to talk about feelings that arise - all this develops a creative approach to any business,” Igor Kondin believes. “Not a single profession, not a single craft exists without creativity and intuition.”

The brilliant Russian engineer Vladimir SHUKHOV wrote: “I cannot imagine an engineer outside of culture. Without being acquainted with Pushkin and Lermontov, Chekhov and Tolstoy, Repin and Tchaikovsky, no one will achieve anything.” Today, Polytechnic University is facing an ambitious task to enter the top hundred of the world’s best universities. This is possible, among other things, due to the cultural component in the preparation of well-educated, truly intelligent graduates - new engineering elite capable of making a breakthrough in the economy and science.

Prepared by the Directorate for Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity.