MDI Valley: HSE Students' Organization

The HSE is one of the leading universities in which the movement for the creation of student organizations is highly developed. To date, more than 100 student organizations are registered, in which each student can find himself not only something to his liking, but also make new acquaintances, and find true friends and like-minded people. 

MDI Valley is an initiative group of students organized by representatives of the HSE and University of London Parallel Degree Programme in Management and Digital Innovations, created to maintain the emotional balance of students during their studies at the university, as well as to strengthen the inter-student community. This student organization manages and conducts events aimed at building new and strong friendships among students. It is worth noting that “MDI Valley” also undertakes the integration of international students into the community.

Today we decided to interview Ivan Zyuba, head of the student organization MDI Valley on the HSE and University of London Parallel Degree Programme in Management and Digital Innovations.

Ivan Zyuba

Ivan is a 4th year HSE student of HSE and University of London Parallel Degree Programme in Management and Digital Innovations

Hello Ivan! I am very glad that you took the time to participate in this interview. Please tell our readers a little about yourself.

My name is Ivan. I am 21 years old. I am a 4th year student of Business Informatics of Higher School of Business in HSE. Before that, I studied in the HSE and University of London Parallel Degree Programme in Management and Digital Innovations (MDI ), but in the third year of study I decided to change the educational program for personal reasons. I am sure that such shift in my life does not prevent me from having many friends in the MDI educational programme. In parallel with my studies, I work as a developer at Transneft Technology, LLC. I am fond of forging and programming. In addition, it is highly important to mention that due to the fact that I like to communicate with different people, I also like to talk a lot.

Great, you are a very interesting person. Could you share with the readers how you came up with the idea to create a student organization "MDI Valley" on the MDI educational programme?

The initial student organization was assembled by curators from Business Informatics, who were supposed to help in the formation of a new student organization. It is worth noting that this organization appeared (it was called “Young MDI”), but the help from the curators from Business Informatics turned out to be minimal. The interest in the student organization quickly disappeared among its initial members after the very first event, as it turned out to be unprofitable. At that time, I was not a member of the student organization.

The organization of events and the management of the «MDI Valley» turned out to be of little interest to anyone at that time. A few months later, my friend from MDI educational program and I decided to organize our own event that was planned to be dedicated to end of the first year of education. We decided to organize it in a different way. We agreed that the main thing at our events is the atmosphere. We moved away from the concept of soulless pastime, and it worked. Everyone really liked the event we organized. As we like to say in our student organization: "This business model of the event has shown its effectiveness". This is how the history of the current student association “MDI Valley” began.

Amazing story! How soon did you become the head of the new student organization «MDI Valley» after such a triumph for your team?

Naturally, I did not immediately become a leader, but I was able to demonstrate my leadership and creative qualities, which could not be overlooked by other members of the organization. It is worth noting that I brought a little innovation to the organization of events. As I said, I love programming, so before each event we always have something new: either a Telegram bot or an automated student registration platform for an event, or something else that comes to my mind or the guys. My involvement in the process of organizing the event allowed me, in the shortest possible time, to break out to key positions, and a little later - here I am the head of the student organization. In the summer of 2018, I officially registered a student active on the HSE Family platform, purchased a domain name for mail and created a site with themed riddles to attract the attention of the MDI educational programme students and entertain them a little before the event.

What kind of events does «MDI Valley» host?

The MDI may be considered as small educational program due to the fact that each course has around 40 to 70 students. Therefore, “MDI Valley” quite often cannot afford some activities as there is a high probability that they will not pay off, and no one wants to work for themselves. Only this year, 106 people entered MDI educational program as the first-year students. This aspect gave us the opportunity to turn around and conduct the initiation ceremony for freshmen the way we wanted, with less financial constraints.

Main directions of activities that MDI Valley» host are the following:

• Rite of passage for freshmen
• New Year's event
• Events at the end of the year (picnic or DND or school year end party, etc.)

What are “MDI Valley” 's goals for next year?

The goals of our student organization are as follows: firstly, it is extremely important to prepare the very administrative part of our organization for the next year, since today most of the leading positions are occupied by 4th year students; secondly, it is necessary to brilliantly carry out all the planned activities of our student organization.

Is “MDI Valley” planning to integrate international students into its ranks, or has this kind of integration already taken place?

Why not? The question is, what kind of person you are. Our organization needs responsible guys, and from which country it does not matter. The main thing is for a person to be active. I would also like to note that today our student organization already has several representatives from other countries. Summarizing all of the above, my answer is YES.

Ivan, please share with our readers how often students are selected for this organization? What are the criteria for candidates?

Usually every six months: early August and late winter. I will not give you specific selection criteria, probably the most important thing is that you are a student of the HSE and have not only the desire, but also the opportunity to organize an event. Of course, some organizational experience would be a plus, but not required.

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. The last question: What would you like to wish our readers in the coming year?

Happiness and health.