Learning From Our Peer
State University of Aerospace Instrumentation
The lecture started with an introduction from St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation OSA chapter president, Vasily Kazakov. He talked about the research group from the department of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Communications and their outreach activities. Then he gave the floor to Arseny Zhdanov, PhD student of University of South Florida, who started his presentation with overview of OSA, membership benefits, published journals and organized conferences. The main part of his lecture covered his experience as a PhD student in the United States, trending research topics, and innovative approaches. He also pointed out that a student membership from OSA can definitely professional help students early in their career.
The lecture itself attracted the attention of students not only from our department, but from the entire university. For our chapter, it was probably the most significant event in we have held in the last year. It is always an important event when a person from abroad visits the university. Second, Arseny is a former colleague and the student chapter wanted to find out what are the differences between the style of education in Russia and the United States as well as what the positive and negative aspects of studying abroad are. One of the biggest highlights was the informal Q&A session after the talk where attendees consulted Mr. Zhdanov on what qualities they should develop during undergrad study and what are the strongest points for our resume to highlight as it caused quite a lively discussion. Arseny was asked about research, equipment used, and the style of teaching in the United States.
Arseny helped awaken the interest of young students to enroll in research at our university. Maybe not every student will become an OSA member since not all are specialized in the field of optics. However, it certainly gave a new stimulus to the promotion of scientific activity at our university. Thanks to Arseny’s lecture, we expect our chapter to gain new members.
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to OSA for providing the Traveling Lecturer Program, to which we were able to host Arseny Zhdanov and receive a valuable technical talk about the field as well as our future as professionals in optics.
