Railway Universities
Railway universities prepare students for careers in various aspects of railroading. They were formerly known as: "railway colleges". During the Soviet period they were often known as "higher educational institutes" (for railroads) оr вуз (Russian), (an acronym ), and this designation is still in use. In 1967 (Soviet period) they had a total of 215,000 students enrolled, about half of which were correspondence students. However, less than 7000 students graduated each year, mostly in engineering (such as electrical, mechanical, or civil engineering with emphasis on railroad applications).
Today (2010), about 20 years after the demise of the Soviet Union that founded many of these colleges, railway universities are still quite active. Two major railway universities in 2010 are in St. Petersburg and Moscow:
- Petersburg Government University of Railways official site (Russian) (a little in English)
- Moscow State University of Railway Engineering (MIIT) official site (Russian) (a little in English)
The Moscow "University claims to be the 5th largest university in the world in terms of the number of students (about 60,000). This excludes correspondence students but might include students in the over 40 branches of the university in other cities and also might include students in the "technikum" (which is something like an advanced trade school) that merged into the university. However only "17,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students" are claimed on the English part of the official university website:
Other Railway Universities in Russia (with more precisely translated names like "Samara Government University of Railways") in 2010 are: (Note that "wiki" refers to the Russian Wikipedia )
- Samara Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site located in Samara
- Omsk Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site located in Omsk
- Rostov Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site located in Rostov-on-Don
- Far East Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site (English) located in Khabarovsk
- Irkutsk Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site located in Irkutsk
- Siberian Railway University (wiki) (Russian) official site located in Novosibirsk
- Ural State University of Railway Transport official site located in Sverdlovsk
- Russian Open Academy of Transportation (wiki) (Russian) official site headquarters in Moscow
(The "Open Academy" is a correspondence school and is part of the Moscow Railway University: MIIT).
The above universities often have branches in other cities. Railway trade schools "technikumi" may have been taken in under the university umbrella. The above websites often include pictures of campuses, students, etc. For full access to the websites (which includes class assignments, etc.) one usually needs an account (including password) which only the students, etc. may obtain. Russians today seem to be highly motivated to obtain a college education, even if the job prospects are not very good. It was thought by some that under capitalism, there would not be the surplus of college graduates that existed in the USSR. But it turns out that there is an even greater surplus today.
Read more about this topic: Rail Transport In Russia
Famous quotes containing the words railway and/or universities:
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