It is big honour to study here at Soongsil University, among generous, helpful, kind students. What is needed to be stressed out, I am really happy to be first student here at Soongsil from Kazakhstan.  Despite the cultural difference, we can understand each other easily. I can say that now I am living the most exciting days. Actually, I cannot express what I am feeling. If to be honest, I was really afraid. One girl from my country and the university is really big; I thought I will get lost here. Despite that I have travelled to many countries, the city was so huge and scaring in the beginning. But, with this kind of helpful students I have learned to many things. They are all individual. I met a lot of awesome people and already made friends whom I will never forget. They are willing to make my Soongsil university days an unforgettable adventure. What about university, it was founded in 1897, a reputation and goal that Soongsil still maintains today is by providing exemplary private education to the Korean community.  Moreover, I hope that there will be other exchanges after me. I hope our university will also receive the students from Soongsil and I already know that I will do my best to make their time passed in my country to be very fun and awesome adventure.

By Aliya Orynbassarova,

Chemical Engineering’2012

(Students Exchange to Soongsil University, Fall 2011)

Erasmus Mundus scholarship gives opportunity for students from Central Asia to study at the Universities in Europe and acquire an experience of living abroad, cultural exchange, and fostering independency.

It is what I heard and read when I was applying for the scholarship, but, in fact, this program has much more to offer.

To start with, my name is Gaukhar Janburshina and I am Erasmus Mundus student at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. Studying abroad has always been my dream and I often thought of getting my master degree in English-speaking countries, such as USA, Australia or England. But coming to Italy and study in this wonderful country as an exchange student were totally unexpected, yet very fascinating.

As my major of finance suggests, I am studying at the Faculty of Economics in the University of L’Aquila. The university is named as the city itself, for “l’aquila” meaning “eagle” in English. This Italian city is a commune and the center of Abruzzo region, and is located not far from Rome, the most incredible capital of the world.

At our university the classes are basically conducted in Italian, along with some courses in English for international students. There are a many students from Poland, Spain and Turkey that come each year as Erasmus students to study engineering, medicine, economics, biotechnology, languages and many more other fields. Altogether with Central Asian students from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan we make up real international team. Thereby, being an Erasmus student in Italy is great opportunity to not only explore every feature of Italian life and people but also to learn about other countries and cultures.

What I really like is that at each Faculty for those courses in Italian Erasmus students are allowed to have an exam in English; which is great, because most of the courses I have to take are available only in Italian. In addition, there is a course of Italian language designed for international students, at which we are divided into 4 groups according to our level. Even though most of us started learning the language only after arrival, we make an improvement every day. Mostly because, in our city knowledge of Italian language is vital, as people don’t speak English at all, including most Italian students.

If I were asked what it is like studying in Italy, I would say it is absolutely something else! And it’s all due to the fact that way of life, attitude to work and study, human relationships, environment – the total atmosphere is so much different! Studying and living with Italian peers, interacting with respective age population, and just observing their everyday life I have understood what European’s stability means in all its aspects. And at this point, Italian stability can be viewed in its old, historic, well-maintained streets, clean new areas, along with Italian people, that are never worried about the future and enjoy every moment of their precious life, like amazing uncountable squares with historic monuments and beautiful fountains, crowds of tourists everywhere throughout the year, comfortable and attracting cafes and bars on the streets. And of course, in the form of youth hanging out in the city center on Thursdays’ and Saturdays’ night, which is a huge part of students’ life.

I am deeply convinced that after my term here in Italy I will come to Kazakhstan with a baggage of unforgettable study experience, knowledge of 2^nd foreign language, changed attitude to certain things, lots of friends and contacts all over the world, souvenirs from most European countries, and with an awareness how much love, respect and honor I have for my country.

By Gaukhar Janburshina, FEF’2012

(Students Exchange at University of L’Aquilla, Italy,

2011-2012, Erasmus Mundus Program)

Hello everyone! My name is Assel Baiganova. I'm a master student of Kazakh-British Technical University. I want to tell you how my internship is being spent in GIST, South Korea (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology). I will show the laboratory, where I spend most of the time, what and where we eat, whom I communicate with. I hope you will be interested!

1. The sun rises in Gwangju early. However, I rarely see it.

2. The breakfast starts with long queue in canteen – cafeteria, but everyone waits their turn come.

3. All sidewalks along the roads throughout the campus covered with bike paths. My laboratory is located 10 minutes way if to walk.

4. This is the transport which is the most popular among the students.

5. The highest building – School of Material Science and Engineering. My laboratory “Smart Hybrid Material Lab” is on the 6^th floor

6. This is my laboratory where I spend most of the time. The reagents, equipment, and clothes - everything is available. If there is no reagents or tablewares I order them via internet and on the next day the ordered things will be delivered.

7. It is time to have a lunch. Tongue is still burning on the spiciness of kimchi and ramen. But I almost got used to the daily rice and a variety of spicy salads.

8. After dinner comes the most intriguing moment for students - meeting. Meeting with a professor, a discussion of the results and planning for the coming week.

9. After the meeting, we go back to the lab. There is no time restrictions in doing labs , the experiment can be proceed until 22:00, until midnight and on weekends. The most important thing is proper planning of your time and the time of the experiment.

10.If the supper is bored in the canteen, we go to KimbabLand where the choice for meal is plentiful, but all of them are spicy also :). By the way, there is a kind of tradition that professors once a month invite their students to the restaurant. This is one of the first dinners in the restaurant, where a professor asked me about Kazakhstan, about KBTU. The professors are impressed with our large territory and small population.

11. After supper or after 19:00, as far as we are "intonhaksein," which means student-interns, we can not go to the lab. In general, it depends on the experiment: if you did not finish the work until 18:00, you should come back because by tomorrow a certain part of the experiment for further analysis must be prepared. Usually I try to start early and finish by 18:00, which allows me to go in for sport.

12. After a busy day I return to the dorm and speak to my friends and family in Kazakhstan through Skype.

13.  Weekends. I want to go everywhere, eyes run on a variety of colorful advertisings, shops.

14. I visited the National Museum, the Museum of Art in Gwangju.

15. After a long day the evening comes with its beautiful sunset.

16.  It is beautiful in Gwangju now. Everything is blossoming and green.

I couldn’t find people from Kazakhstan, but have lots of friends from different countries: Malaysia, Nepal, Cambodia, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Romania, Germany, Nigeria, India

This week I'm going to the conference with a professor in Korea. There is Election Day tomorrow - a weekend for us, so my friends and me have to make a plan for tomorrow how to spend it actively.

Thanks to the International Department of KBTU for giving me opportunity to have an internship in one of the best research institutes of Korea. In addition, I want to express my gratitude to the Institution of Science and Technology in Gwangju for this wonderful internship that provides me with real experience in the laboratory, for giving opportunity to work with one of the best professors Tae-Ho Yoon, for having a lot of friends and good impressions.

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology enrolls students for doing their internships, Masters and PhD annually.

If you are interested enter the site of GIST http://ewww.gist.ac.kr/, or website of lab where I am having internship https://mse.gist.ac.kr/~smartpolymer/ .

Thank you!

Assel Baiganova, MSc of Petrochemistry’2013

Research Internship, GIST, South Korea

Spring 2012

Let me tell you a story on how I won the Total Scholarship which totally changed my life.

I heart about Total Scholarship by accident. It was my 4th year in KBTU when one of my friends asked to submit her application (she couldn’t do this by herself, because she was on internship in Astana). At that moment I didn’t even think about participation in Total Competition, because it was announced for FOGI students, and I was studying Finance at FEF. However, in one week there was a call from the Dean's Office and I was invited to an interview with company representatives. Since that time my life has changed…

Now I am doing Master of Science in Corporate Finance at EDHEC Business School, Nice, France. I would like to say huge thank you to KBTU (from all my heart..really..) for great undergraduate base. Probably, when I was studying in KBTU I didn’t realize that we were getting truly higher education. But here in one of the best European School (EDHEC became 26th in the ranking of European Institutions) I finally understood value of knowledge which KBTU professors gave us. Thanks to knowledge which I have learned at home, everything seems to be easy for me now.

But let return to France. At first it was hard because I was away from my home country. The biggest problem was knowledge of French. My first weeks were like in the game “Crocodile”. However, starting from the first days of education we applied for  a French course. These courses helped to remove a language barrier – my French is still poor, but at least I can speak. The main difference at EDHEC is style of teaching – mainly its self-studying and case-study. There are a lot of different courses which you can find here. Nevertheless, the main courses will depend on major. The academic staff is excellent. All professors differ from each other to great extent.

All of them are from different countries which have some influence on their mind. In finance most of the themes are cross-linked. So it is very interesting to hear opinions of different people –it helps to see te whole problem in general. For example, now I am reading a course of Advanced Corporate Finance which is given by Professor Florenceo Lopez-de-Silanes (professor of Harvard niversity). His innovative style is a contrast to classical approach of Professor Alfred Davis (professor from Pennsylvania State University) who gave us similar lectures last semester.

You will ask me about life in Nice? It’s cool. I have met a lot of wonderful people from different parts of the world. And all of them are so unique. It is really important for self-developing and improvement of communicative skills. The climate is also wonderful. And views of the sea…

In addition, while I am here I am travelling a lot. Thanks to Total company who is organizing team-buildings all around Europe we have already been in Paris and this March 2012 we are going to Brussels. It gives us a chance to communicate not only with company representatives, but with other participants of educational program.

To sum up, I would like to say that international educational experience is a very important part of my life which (I hope) will help me in future. Thank you to Total who supports students
in all questions and take care about us. I think all Total scholars will agree with me =)

Christina Tikhonenko, FEF’2011

MSc, EDHEC Business School,

Nice, France

2011-2013, Total Scholarship

My name is Karim Zakiev. I have graduated from the Oil and Gas Industry Faculty of KBTU in 2011. Currently I am studying at the Royal University of Technology (KTH) in Sweden's capital city of Stockholm by Erasmus Mundus TARGET II program. 

While being a student of the 2 year, I decided not to stop getting only bachelor's degree. Therefore, I always actively looked for the news about scholarship programs and other opportunities for applying to Master’s degree, studied the requirements and gradually prepared myself. It should be noted that all of the necessary conditions for the development of students’ potential in education as well as in giving opportunities are being made, and  I am very grateful to the faculty, Career sector and the International Department. 

After reading announcement in KBTU site about the opening of the registration for the competition program Erasmus Mundus, I began to collect documents. By the way, the diplomas, transcripts and other documents which were issued in Kazakh, Russian and English languages greatly facilitated the process of registration because I did not have anything to translate. The most enjoyable moment was hearing the news that I was given a scholarship to study in Stockholm. 

Next was a trip to Moscow, visa, and finally, in mid-August: "Hurrah, I'm in Stockholm!". From the first minutes of arriving to Stockholm, I had only good impressions. I did not have a culture shock. The main reason is that most people understand English, and majority of them speak even perfectly. By the way, the Scandinavians despite its closeness to outsiders and external rigor, are very responsive and friendly. 

From the beginning I felt a lot of support in all matters of administration of the program: from the legal issues, housing issues ending with orientation in the city. The first two weeks of my arrival to Stockholm were filled with all sorts of activities organized by a local association of foreign students. There were tours around the city, the evenings of Swedish cuisine, lectures on the Swedish culture and different interesting and useful activities were arranged for foreign students. 

Getting adapted, I started to walk more around the city and its surroundings and was able to verify that Stockholm is really Venice of the North because Stockholm is located on the islands. It is green and rainy city. In addition to these due to the Swedes responsible attitude to the environment it is not surprising that in 2010 Stockholm won the first European Green Capital Award. Moreover it is possible to immerse yourself in the medieval era, if you are suddenly bored with the rhythm of the modern city. It's enough just to stroll through the Old Town. 

Since the main purpose of my visit here is an education, perhaps it's time to move on to my impressions about the education. KTH is one of the leading universities in Scandinavia and which is included into the list of world ranking universities. The university deserves to be in the higher positions among the world universities. The campus  has everything that a student need for studying: modern classrooms, libraries and laboratories. The most thing I like is access to the classes and computer laboratories all the time. Print and copy center of documents also can be used all the time. 

As for the education system, it was not difficult for me to get accustomed because it was almost the same credit system as in KBTU. The difference between these two universities is putting enormous emphasis on independent work of students. That is, only overview of the lectures which are given, and students have to work on themselves independently. Therefore, the number of lecture hours is less. 

A student can always ask a teacher if it is necessary or study in one of the city, university, royal or other libraries. Fortunately, there are lots of libraries in Stockholm. Moreover, anyone can use the richest libraries for free. It is only necessary to have a local analog of our RTN. It is very convenient to check the availability of relevant literature by online from one database. You can even choose which of the libraries you would like to get the book that you are interested in, and it will be delivered there. 

The most thing I like in studying in foreign universities is the is possibility to study in a multinational society. I have found friends from different countries and enlarged my outlook. I can confidently say that programs like Erasmus Mundus help to develop personal qualities and give a tremendous experience. 

Some people may think we only study here that it is boring, even may ask a question if we have some fun or not. I’d say that the students arrange different types of parties and there are amazing clubs here, also. As far as the Swedes are people who like sports, so if you prefer, you can skate or ski, swim or do any other sports. During the holidays students can go sightseeing around Europe. I cannot say that I am bored here. By the way, the scholarship is enough to live here.

Karim Zakiyev, FOGI’2011

MSc, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

2011-2013, Erasmus Mundus Program

My name is Laura Malikova. I studied in Chemical Technology of Organic Substances specialty of KBTU and graduated in 2010. The subjects like Processing of oil and gas, Ecology and summer internships in refineries of Kazakhstan organized by KBTU had a significant impact on my decision to continue to deepen my knowledge in the field of energy and the ecology. So in the last year of my study I searched and came across with a master program of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden, Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment. Later, on page of KBTU site an article about a new project Target International Scholarship Program Erasmus Mundus was published and Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment at KTH was in the list of the project. It was really good news. Applying for the program, I anxiously waited the results of the selection. When I was told that I won a scholarship Erasmus Mundus my head span from my happiness. I worked as an engineer for the protection of the environment in one of the best company in Kazakhstan that provide services to oil companies at that time. During the holidays I went to Moscow and was issued a residence permit in Sweden. 

Currently I am studying at the Royal Institute of Technology in the direction of Chemical Engineering for Energy and Environment. Thanks to meticulous organization of the university administration and the program Erasmus Mundus I quickly adapted to a new Swedish culture. The administration helped in everything from paperwork, opening a bank account to everyday issues. Housing in Stockholm is problematic, but I was given a room in a funny campus Lappis with all the necessary conditions because of being a scholarship winner. In the first two weeks of  I felt like "Alice in the Wonderland" in a green, clean and surprisingly beautiful capital of Scandinavia in Stockholm, where the majority of people use bicycles for travellig, public transportation works with the bio-ethanol, and service vehicles work with electricity to keep the air clean. Every detail was thought out for the comfort of people. The above-mentioned projects of bio-ethanol and electric motors were developed by state jointly with the Royal Institute of Technology. The highest level of integration of business and science in the country impressed me. 

Because of teaching language is English and there is a credit system, the study here is not difficult, the same like in KBTU. Courses are more focused on the independent work of students. Chemical Engineering Master's program pays more attention to the higher mathematics. A rich library, all kinds of electronic services, access to the university building: seven days a week any time of the day, support from teachers makes the study easier. Professors use different methods to motivate students. For example, on the base of the Energy Processes in Industry course KTH organized a trip to the base of Siemens, which produces gas and steam turbines.  During the weekdays students study till late night and organize parties at weekends where all of us can find interesting friends from all over the world. Moreover, students can learn the Swedish language with a special program indented for the citizens of other countries, to do their favorite sport and participate in singing, dancing contests. 

Knowledge gained in the KBTU was very helpful both in the employment and studying in the KTH. I express my deep gratitude to the faculty, KBTU administration and wish them further success in preparing specialists and scientists in Kazakhstan.

Laura Malikova, Chemical Engineering’2010

MSc in KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

2011-2013, Erasmus Mundus Program

This year I had a unique chance to practice in laboratory of University of L’Aquila, Italy. I spend there 1 month with a half – from 14^th of June to 31^st of July, 2012.

L’Aquila is the capital of the Abruzzi region, 1.5 hours driving from Rome. It is a small town, built in the mountains, and the people who live there are called "Montagne persona" (from it. mountain people). I went to Italy for the first time, and from the first second I arrived I felt the friendliness and responsiveness of local people. Italians are very hospitable, open and temperamental people. In L’Aquila Professor Veglio was responsible for my internship and he met me very friendly. Laboratory, where I had an internship was in mountainous area near Royo, far from the city center. Faculty of Engineering of the University L’Aquila is located in the same area. Actually, L’Aquila is famous for its University, and Chemical Engineering Department is the 3rd in Italy after the University of Torino and Milano. The laboratory is equipped with modern equipment. Also Faculty famous for its staff such as Professor Veglio and Foscolo. Professor Foscolo, known not only in Italy but throughout Europe. He was even invited to Nazarbayev University.

There are several laboratories in the Faculty of Engineering. In one of them I joined the project "Extraction of valuable metals from quartz lamps and batteries" along with experts and scientists. In addition to this project, I learned how to work with the program "Super Pro Designer", which would make the chemical calculations and planning of all chemical processes. In another laboratory work, another group of scientists who were involved in preparing the adsorbent to absorb harmful gases CO₂, H₂S, CO. This is a new Euro-project, which will receive its main line of the oil industry. The most surprising is that the senior chemical engineer of the project is from our country - one of the best specialists, a scientist, and an associate professor of KazNTU Zhenisova Akbota Zhenisovna. Thanks to her, I had access to this lab. For me it was an honor to be in the lab and see the essence of the chemical process. Now under new adsorbents are received and tested, the project has already represented in Florence and in Toronto. In September of this year the project will present in Pescara (Italy).The investments of the project are already planned, and many European oil companies are looking forward to its implementation.

So on there were two Kazakh, one Russian, and the rest are all Italians in the Chemical Engineering Department. We worked from 9 am to 5 pm, from Monday to Friday. Using weekends and the close proximity of Europe I travelled to other cities in Italy and other countries - combining business with pleasure.

Elzira Kenzhegaliyeva,

2^nd year student of Chemical Engineering,

Internship in University of L’Aquila