Students of Institute of Foreign Languages of RUDN won the "My Initiative in Education" contest

The following students took part in the mobile application development: Aziza Boltaeva, Elizaveta Gavrilova, Anastasia Gordeeva, Georgy Gorshkov, Svetlana Zaitseva, Alexander Pechkov, Margarita Smolkina, Irina Spiridonova, and Elizaveta Tulentsova, second-year masters in linguistics.

Participants of the project told about the project in detail:

How did you come up with the idea to create a mobile app?

The development of the app began with the idea of creating a concept of a convenient unified platform for students and applicants as a project for the state exam.

We realized that in order to promote RUDN and increase brand awareness, it was better to focus on the target audience: applicants and first-year students. The first ones are in the process of choosing a university, while the latter most often need help adapting to university life.

We had to go through a huge number of ideas: from a simple campus tour to recording informative podcasts for applicants and students.

However, the idea of creating a platform where users could find all the necessary documents, instructions, and contacts seemed to us the most promising.

Who was involved in the development?

Our classmates: we all went through the process of entering university and encountered various difficulties. In the course of the work, everyone shared their experiences and situations that caused the greatest difficulties in admission and in student life.

What is the purpose of this app?

The main goal is to create a user-friendly platform that makes finding important information and document templates easier and faster.

How will the App make student life easier?

The App is a kind of mix of useful information collected in one place. Do you need to find the phone number of RUDN Clinical and Diagnostic Center or look through the list of disciplines studied in your chosen field of study? Now you can just open the application, where all the necessary information is distributed by specific blocks and use it. You no longer need to search for information on the website or in the Vkontakte group.

Developing an app is a very time-consuming process. What were the difficulties?

There were problems with the Appsfera website builder we used to create the app. Since none of our team had worked with it before, we had to figure out its functionality together.

Will work on the project continue? What are the future prospects?

Our application is not perfect. Many elements of web design and functionality will be developed and expanded. Prospects for further work on the application depend primarily on financial support. Some functions that were present in the initial concept could not be implemented, as they were not included in the platform functionality available to us and required the work of a specialist.

We hope that our project will be of interest to the Institute of Foreign Languages, that it will receive technical support and will be implemented in full.

The contest "My Initiative in Education" has been held annually since 2005 as part of the Herzen Forum. It provides a platform for the presentation of socially significant projects in the educational sphere. The main tasks were: development of creative activity of students and stimulation of their initiative in solving socially significant problems in various spheres of life.

Since 2017 the Herzen Forum has been held in an international format: students from Bulgaria, Croatia, Syria, Namibia, Georgia, Belarus, China and Thailand have already presented their projects in the contest.