Today we would like to give some facts from the history of the project, talk about the available resources for preparation, the opportunities for participants and potential finalists of the Olympiad.
Photo: Headway / Unsplash
Why participate
Firstly, the winners of “I am a Professional” have significant benefits when enrolling in graduate and postgraduate studies, and in some universities participating in the project, a victory will help to enter without exams. Secondly, it is an opportunity to undergo an internship at the largest companies in the country and receive offers of cooperation as the university graduates (the winners enter the database “I am a professional”, which is studied in many Russian companies).
The first deputy head of the presidential administration of Russia Sergey Kiriyenko said at the awarding ceremony for the winners of YaP: “I see here the directors of the largest Russian companies, market leaders, each of which goes with notes, writes out the winners. In general, they begin to fight for you. And it’s great, it’s very important. ”
Finally, winners receive not only diplomas and medals. The best of the best - gold medalists - get good money: 200 thousand rubles - undergraduate students, 300 thousand - specialty and master's students. On the other hand, the main goal of the project is to check the professional training of participants and introduce them to the requirements of employers.
How it all began
The organizers of the Olympiad announced the start of the project on October 9, 2017 at the TASS press center. It was assumed that students from at least 250 universities of the country will fight for the victory. Participants were waiting for assignments in 27 areas from business informatics to journalism. They were prepared not only by university employees, but also potential employers - experts of 61 companies.
“The diploma should be a kind of“ guarantee letter ”for the employer, but this is not always the case,” explained Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, who was interested in the project of participating companies. - About 50% of company executives speak about lack or inadequate training. This is a constraint on business development. ”
According to Alexander Rudik, head of the Business Russia vocational education and training committee, the Olympiad will identify specialists with key business skills: the ability to think critically and work in situations of uncertainty. HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov said at the time: “It is so difficult to find really strong professionals who stand out from the mass of those who simply received a diploma.”
Registration was opened in November 2017. And in a week they collected about 10 thousand applications. Their total number was 295 thousand. These were students from 828 universities and their branches from 84 regions of the country. An online tour gathered 50 thousand participants, but about 5 thousand people got to the final full-time stage. They were the best of the best: almost half received diplomas and medals. The graduates were 2030 students. 248 people received Olympic medals.
Unexpected for the organizers, interest was shown by students of medical universities. There were a lot of them, but in the end the participants were on top. In the first season, 79 people from the First MGMU im. THEM. Sechenov. Only 153 HSE students and 94 from UrFU were able to get around them.
The organizers of the second season of the Olympiad increased the number of thematic areas from 27 to 54 and expected that about half a million students would submit applications for participation in the competition. But in the fall of 2018, more than 523 thousand people decided to test their knowledge. 73 thousand participants of the Olympics “I am a Professional” passed the online qualifying stage. The winners were announced this spring.
How to take part
You need to start by registering on the official website. This process will take no more than three minutes. The next step is to participate in the qualifying stage, the organizers will send a link to the tasks. The final stage is carried out in person. Employees of universities and experts of partner companies will evaluate knowledge. An idea of ​​the tasks can be obtained from the examples in the member’s personal account. But there is no point in looking for the real tasks of past seasons. They are not repeated.
Photo: Cole Keister / Unsplash
Still need to be prepared for surprises. One of the participants said that in the face-to-face tour, to his surprise, there were no theoretical tasks, only practice. But this does not mean that such an approach will be for all thematic areas. For example, participants in the Arctic Technologies area have already been promised that there will be work with real scientific data.
Webinars will help you get an idea of ​​the subject and level of the Olympiad. And those who successfully pass online courses will be able to get into the finals, bypassing the qualifying stage. But as the number of directions increases every year, courses are not available in all of them.
Winners of the qualifying stage will be able to listen to lectures in winter schools, training for free. The mere fact of studying in them does not give advantages at the intramural stage. However, they are useful: they are conducted by experts of the partner companies of the Olympiad. For example, the winter school “Finance Changing the World. Reloading ”for the finalists of last year was organized by specialists of the Higher School of Economics and VTB.
What's going on today
Registration for the third season of “I Am Professional” will last until November 18, 2019. The competitions of the qualifying stage will be held from November 22 to December 8. At the end of January - beginning of February 18 winter schools will start working, and the final full-time stage is planned after: at the end of January - early March 2020. This time it will be more difficult to win - there are more competitors: only in the first day 27 thousand applications were received, now there are already more than 275 thousand.
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