Since March 2024, Andrews Tolochka, a doctoral student at the University of Ostrava (Czech Republic, Ostrava), has arrived at Astana International University for a scientific internship. Andrews conducted a series of lectures for 1st year students, as well as practical classes in the discipline of Geostatistics for 2-3 years. He participated in a field training practice for first-year geographers, which this year took place in the Katon-Karagai National Park of East Kazakhstan Region.
Andrews himself shared his impressions about our university:
Firstly, I chose Astana International University (AIU) to practice because they have a pedagogical institute and a geography curriculum. My bachelor's degree was also in geography and pedagogy. For several years I worked as a geography teacher in high school, so after this experience I was interested in studying various educational systems. During my internship at AIU, I was given the opportunity to get to know the Kazakh education system in schools and universities better. I was invited to visit ordinary and private schools in Astana. We had interesting discussions about geography lessons, school management, student attitudes to lessons and psychology with local teachers. This helped me to better understand the main goals, structure and problems of education in Kazakhstan.
Most of my practice has been teaching geostatistics at the AIU Pedagogical Institute. I had a large group of students. It was quite a difficult time, starting with the preparation of materials, ending with the exams. All subjects were in Russian, and considering that I studied at the university in English/Czech, it was much more difficult to explain information and teach students in a language new to me. However, this was one of my goals when I arrived in Kazakhstan. I wanted to improve my communication skills in Russian. It was nice to see so many students interested in learning statistics skills and applying them to their graduate work in the future. They had a lot of questions about research opportunities in geography, and we often discussed ideas about future work positions at school, about education in Kazakhstan and abroad, and teaching practices.
My colleagues invited me to join their field practice in Katon Karagai, East Kazakhstan. We visited the unique mountains of the Southern Altai together with the freshmen. This practice was important to me as a geologist because I got a good understanding of this mountain range, the environment in the valleys of the Bukhtyrma and Irtysh rivers and the eastern Kazakh steppe. On the cultural side, our practice included visiting the city of Oskemen and several villages in the mountains, we also visited an ancient archaeological site - the Saka Valley to look at artifacts left over from the first inhabitants of the Altai Mountains. It was a great pleasure for me to travel with good company, go hiking and live together almost all week.
The practice has been a precious and rewarding experience that has helped me improve my professional, language and social skills. Plus, I met colleagues who are working on interesting research projects in geography and I hope in the future I will come back and work with them.
I am happy that because of my initiative, our universities have approved a bilateral agreement for exchange studies, now perhaps more Czech students will come to visit AIU next year too. I also want to see students from Kazakhstan at my university.