Preparing students following the requirements of the industry is the primary purpose of the Business School. This opinion was expressed by Vasily Garshin, Adviser on educational technologies at VTB Bank, a member of the Project Office of the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU), at the Yandex online conference about education. 

The speaker said that practical orientation is an essential aspect in the preparation of GSOM SPbU programs. "Our concept is to train "playing coaches," project or product managers in the field of advanced analytics and big data. The disciplines of the programs include both works with soft skills and technical courses — subjects where we teach students to work with their hands and understand what should happen inside the project," said Vasily Garshin at the discussion "Using technology in teaching students."

The experts emphasized the importance of applying the acquired knowledge in the used tasks of both: large companies (for example, in banking) and small and medium-sized businesses.

Vasily Garshin talked about the digital educational environment of the Business School. He clarified that students of the program "Master in Business Analytics and Big Data" (MiBA) have started using a cloud platform for technology courses since last year, which allows them to effectively solve educational and research tasks of data analysis without restrictions on computing power and depending on computer classes.

The discussion was also participated by moderator Alexey Ozerin, Senior developer of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at Yandex, Karen Grigoryan, Acting Head of the Department of Digital Technologies in Economics at Kazan Federal University, Alexander Panchenko, senior Lecturer at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.