News

Ugo Cavitte, a 22-year-old student from the north of France, is currently in his second year of studying for a Master's degree in Pedagogy at the HSE Institute of Education. In addition, he teaches French as a foreign language at HSE's School of Foreign Languages and online. In a recent interview, Ugo shared his experience of studying at HSE and teaching French, as well as his advice for those who want to learn a foreign language better and faster. He also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of online learning, and shared his love for Russian cuisine and culture.

An international team of scientists including a HSE researcher have detected a rare optical emission from one of the most powerful gamma-ray bursts in the history of observation. The team measured the parameters of the environment, from which the emission originated, and proceeded to construct a model that simulates the behaviour of gamma-ray bursts. This contributes to our understanding of why such bursts are accompanied by electromagnetic radiation in the visible range. The findings have been published in Nature Astronomy.

Choosing a profession is hard, and not everyone can do it straight away. Such was the case with Taş Elif Esra, an exchange student who came to HSE University from Turkey. Esra started her education in translation studies before finding her passion in sociology. Find out why she decided to change her major and what motivated her to take part in the mobility programme in this interview.

Rogue waves, or killer waves, are abnormally high and deadly waves that can emerge unpredictably in open seas and along shorelines. They pose an imminent deadly threat to everyone from colossal liners and pleasure yachts to seafarers and vacationers. Scientists from the HSE campus in Nizhny Novgorod Efim Pelinovsky and Ekaterina Didenkulova have assembled a catalogue of such phenomena that occurred in the World Ocean from 2011 to 2018, identifying the areas where they are frequently documented and inflict the most substantial damage.

Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl believed that the quest for meaning constitutes a fundamental and intrinsic motivation for all human beings. Some other authors suggest that the need for meaning or purpose only emerges at higher levels of personality development. According to a team of psychologists from HSE and the University of Paris Nanterre, individuals who have achieved higher levels of ego development are inclined to relinquish hedonistic motives in favour of cultivating mindfulness and embarking on a quest for meaning. These findings have been published in Frontiers in Psychology.

On June 8th, 2023, students from different faculties of HSE University who had participated in the project ‘Cross-cultural dialogue between the Arab Maghreb and France through the example of song and music traditions’ presented the results of their work. Irina Bilyk, head of the project, and Arina Tulebaeva, a second-year student of the Asian and African Studies programme at HSE University in Moscow, who was instrumental in organising it, spoke to us about the project.

A delegation from Mofid University has visited HSE University. Representatives of the Iranian university expressed interest in cooperation with HSE in the framework of research projects and educational programmes in the field of economics, legal aspects of the Islamic system of finance and other areas. The parties also discussed the opportunities for launching a joint academic mobility programme.

Xinyi Zhao, 23, is a second-year Master’s student in Comparative Social Research. Originally from Weihai, Shandong, China, she came to HSE University with a desire to turn theoretical knowledge into practical solutions. Xinyi spoke to the HSE News Service about the importance of utilising one’s learning, as well as why foreigners in Moscow shouldn’t be scared to ask for help.