International applicants enrolling in Master’s degree or postgraduate programmes can study at South Ural State University (SUSU) free of charge, upon winning in the Open Doors International Olympiad of the Association of Global Universities. SUSU, being one of the leading universities in Russia, acts as the organizer of the Olympiad.
As many as 21 Candidates and Doctors of Sciences of South Ural State University are ready to become academic advisors of Master’s degree and postgraduate students in various fields: from literary studies to industrial ecology.
SUSU postgraduate and Master’s degree students, who are interested in conducting research in the field of Psychological Sciences will be mentored by Doctor of Sciences (Psychology), Head of the Department of Psychology of Management and Law Enforcement Activities of the School of Medical Biology Elena Rylskaya. Now, the Psychology of Human Vitality direction is actively developing under her leadership.
– Elena, could you please tell us more about the scientific direction in which the winners of the Open Doors Olympiad will work?
– SUSU winning in the Priority 2030 program opens big opportunities for our future postgraduate and Master’s degree students. They will be actively working on the project of Health in the Digital World, which will be implemented within the framework of this Program in accordance with the Psychology of Human Vitality scientific direction being developed under our leadership. Currently, a new trend is being formed within this direction, which includes the study of life potential and its role in maintaining human mental health in digital environment. This year in June, our postgraduate Anastasia Kolmogortseva has successfully defended her thesis, in which she established the connection between vitality and Internet addiction and showed that a person with Internet addiction is characterized by reduced vitality. Since the parameters of viability decrease with the increase in the indicators of Internet addiction, we can talk about the systemic impact of Internet addiction on a person. Internet addiction reduces the ability to live a life itself as the latter is a dynamic characteristic that requires successful solution of the entire spectrum of urgent life tasks.
– How relevant is the research in the field of psychology today?
– Health in the digital environment is a strategic direction of SUSU for the next 10 years, and our developments are logically included in this area. The status of psychological research is now very high, especially in terms of maintaining human resources in the modern digital world with its information overload, with the risks of losing a job, and losing the value by a number of familiar professions. The relevance of psychological support of a person immeasurably increases in connection with the pandemic of the dangerous coronavirus infection of Covid-19, which affects not only physical but also mental health. The population suffers from prolonged stress, anxiety, and the consequences of the coronavirus infection can be depression and other emotional spectrum disorders that require the help of a qualified psychologist.
– Do you have any experience of working with international students?
– At our department international students come from the countries of the near abroad. Postgraduate student from Kazakhstan Anastasia Butyakova is studying here now. She defended her Master’s degree thesis under our leadership and developed a new experimental method for diagnosing the viability of younger school students.
Our colleague, Senior Research Fellow of the Department of General Psychology, Psychodiagnostics, and Counselling Galina Gorelova, is working with Yaro Abubakar, a postgraduate from the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. His research is related to how international students are affected by stress and is aimed at developing techniques and methods of protection against the negative effects from it.
– What will participants of the Open Doors Olympiad gain by choosing SUSU for conducting scientific research in the field of psychology?
– The Psychology programme has been existing at SUSU for 25 years now. Our Faculty of Psychology was the first in the South Ural region and was among the top five in the Russian Federation. Therefore, teaching staff of the three departments who provide training of Bachelor’s, Specialist, Master’s degree and postgraduate students in the field of psychology at the School of Medical Biology have extensive work experience. The academic staff members of the direction are represented by 8 Doctors and more than 20 Candidates of Sciences.
Winners of the Olympiad, our postgraduate and Master’s degree students, will be able to conduct research work using special equipment at the Psychology and Psyhophisiology of Stress and Creativity Scientific Laboratory headed by Doctor of Sciences (Psychology), Professor Vera Gryazeva-Dobshinskaya.
South Ural State University is a university of digital transformations, where innovative research is conducted in most of the priority fields of science and technology development. In accordance with the strategy of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, the university is focused on the development of big scientific interdisciplinary projects in the field of digital industry, materials science, and ecology. In 2021 SUSU became the winner in the competition under the Priority 2030 program. The university acts as a regional project office of the World-class Ural Interregional Research and Education Centre (UIREC).