To first-year students

Don’t waste time chas­ing grades. It’s point­less: nobody will ever look at your transcript :)

Learn English, but on your own, not in a course. A course will teach you con­ver­sa­tional English, and with­out prac­tice you’ll forget it instantly. Learning English is easy! Read and watch in English what­ever you’d find inter­est­ing in Russian.

Be crit­i­cal of what you hear in lec­tures and seminars. Most of the time the people giving them are just bio­log­i­cal devices for retelling a textbook.

Read prac­ti­cal books on the sub­jects that inter­est you.

If you can’t skip classes (atten­dance is often the only thing you get credit for, though there are ways around that too), read right there in class.

Don’t sign up for the mil­i­tary depart­ment, the uni­ver­sity’s reserve-officer course that keeps you out of the draft. For one thing, it’s cheaper to get out of the draft some other way. For another, you’ll save time and nerves.

Remember: wits and cre­ativ­ity easily make up for know­ing the course manual.

University helps you grow as a person, not as a professional. Learn dis­ci­pline, learn to work in a group, talk to people and make as many con­tacts as you can. They’ll give your career a good start. Jobs and busi­ness ideas most often come through people you know.