Russian
Engaged Russian/Russian and East European Studies
Engaged Russian/Russian and East European Studies takes what you’re learning in your courses and puts it into practice through internships, research, study away, winter term, career exploration, and beyond.
Here’s a sampling of recent projects, field experiences, and post-graduate destinations for Russian and REES majors.
RISE at Oberlin
Research. Internships. Study Away. Experiential Learning.
Ways Russian and REES Majors Rise
Research
- “A Dream Deferred”: Olga Berggolts and Disillusionment in the USSR, 1945-1954
- The Vagrant: Where the Soviet Love of Bollywood Began
- The Underground Soviet: Shaping Soviet Culture in the Leningrad Metro
- Night Thoughts: Existentialism and Russian Romantic Poetry
Internships
- The Great Baikal Trail Project, Siberia
- The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
- Presidential Physics and Mathematics Lyceum 239, St. Petersburg
- The Jewish Museum, Riga, Latvia
- Pheasant’s Tears Winery, Sighnaghi, Georgia
Study Away
- Bard/Smolny College of Liberal Arts & Sciences in St. Petersburg
- Middlebury School in Russia: Irkutsk, Moscow, Yaroslavl
Experiential Learning
- Live or spend time in the immersive environment of Russian House, a small, coed residence hall that is the hub of Russian-related activities (lectures, films, poetry readings, teas, cooking sessions) at Oberlin.
- Teach Russian through our student-driven Winter Term Elementary Russian Intensive.
- Practice literary translation and present your work at Oberlin’s annual Translation Symposium.
- Spend a summer or semester working in-country for nonprofits through OCREECAS (Oberlin Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies) Internships.
First Destinations of Recent Russian and REES Majors
- Fulbright Fellows:
In the past decade, 10 majors have spent a year teaching in Russia and Azerbaijan as Fulbright fellows; last year one of our majors won a Princeton-in-Asia Fellowship.
- Positions:
- Journalist for The Moscow Times
- Assistant to the provost at European University at St. Petersburg
- Sommelier at Pheasant’s Tears Winery in the Republic of Georgia
- Scout for the N.Y. Yankees
- Business development associate for Hornblower Cruises in Calif.
- Risk consultant for Morgan Stanley
- Student coordinator of international and English language programs in Washington
- English language teacher at Language Link in Moscow
- Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan
- Graduate Schools:
Our students have entered top graduate programs in literature, history, and politics at Columbia, Brown, Yale, Oxford, Wisconsin, NYU, Georgetown, Berkeley, Middlebury, University of Chicago and elsewhere.