St. Petersburg: Museum under an open sky Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload was as I had expected-- a little bit of work every day to be completed outside of class, in addition to four major papers. The professors were generally very withdrawn from the student body, and mainly taught with hour-and-a-half lectures and movies that were above our comprehension level. I believe that only a minority of my classes truly hold up to the level of academic expectations held by my home university.

On-site administration of your program

Provided adequate support, program size was too large for the facilities available, my expectations were not met, negative reports about professors voiced by students were not addressed in time for us to benefit (ie: before we left the program). Group leaders were often late for excursions, occasionally left whole portions of the group behind in early city exploration activities (I assume this was because of the program size). Did not chastise students for extreme behavior which resulted in very uncomfortable/inappropriate situations.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Host family provided all essentials, and treated me incredibly well. My apartment was located fairly far away from the central city area, including the university, and required about 4 hours of travel daily.

St. Petersburg has affordable and tasty food which can be found virtually throughout the city.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

CIEE organized many wonderful field trips including trips to the religious monastic island of Valaam, Moscow and Kiev, in addition to a number of smaller cities directly outside of St. Petersburg. Unfortunately the staff was not very active in managing the group, did not provide us with much information about the cities we visited-- the main manager was even absent for the majority of our Moscow trip to attend a concert, leaving the rest of leaders understaffed and unavailable for student support.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Many students became ill during the program and were taken very well care of by CIEE and outside institutions. I did not have any personal experiences however.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

I practiced the language with everyone. I did have to use the language in daily interactions. Most people spoke very little English.

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• Host Family

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• Host Family

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• Americans

• Ability to speak the language everywhere
• Met good friends
• Travel opportunites

• Demonstrate higher level of authority in CIEE staff
• Reprimand professors if negative reviews are communicated to CIEE staff
• Locate students closer to university and/or include daily travel fare in program cost