13. Similarities and differences between “Orientation Week” at Stanford University and your University

At the very beginning I would like to say that our school system differ from the university one a lot. That is why entering the university is like entering a new and completely unknown world, which is full of unfamiliar things. It is accepted that as soon as young people become students they step into adult life. Besides that they get higher education, they are taught to be independent and self-disciplined. But before they adapt to a new system they have to come across with some difficulties. Therefore every university has the so-called “Orientation Week”, during which the freshmen have the opportunity to get used to the university life.

Since all universities are different, so, they have dissimilar programs of “Orientation Week”. Let’s compare our university and a foreign one, for example, Stanford University. Well, while at Stanford University the freshmen are immersed in a great number of events, for instance, they are involved in such recreational activities as barbecues or bathing on the beach, we don’t have any at all. What is more, unfortunately we don’t have any organized discussions with upperclassmen, which might be rather helpful. However, there are some similarities in the activities that are organized in both universities. As well as at Stanford University the freshmen of MSLU have a wonderful opportunity to meet the dean of their faculty personally. Furthermore, several special lectures are organized at the assembly hall, during which the students are given the information about all the libraries, listening- and reading-halls. Besides, they are informed about the rules which must be observed at the university.

For my part, I consider such thing as “Orientation Week” to extremely useful for freshmen in any university, because it really helps them to get involved into the university life in the shortest period. Apart from that, it allows the students to save more time and efforts afterwards. It is also gives a wonderful possibility to get to know with your future teachers, which is very important because they the very people who will be together with you for five hard years.

14. The importance of learning English these days

To begin with, I’d like to say that in Shakespeare’s time English considered to be a “provincial language of secondary importance”. But nowadays it has got the world’s status. In fact, English has become the most important language in politics, science, trade and cultural relations. Moreover, in the number of countries it is used as one of the official languages or at least it is spoken as a second one. Even more widely English is used for communication across frontiers, listening to broadcasts, reading foreign books and newspapers, in commerce and international tourism. Besides, English is associated with technological and economic development of the great manufacturing countries.

Let’s now analyze why it is so important to learn English. Well, as we all know, today one of the most burning problems for young specialists all over the world is getting a good and well-paid job. Usually it requires at least knowledge of one or sometimes several foreign languages. The more languages you know the bigger amount of information you can obtain, and the more educated and intelligent you are. Just imagine, if you have a good command of the English and Russian languages you’re capable of getting more than 70% of world’s information. And isn’t it pleasant to go to any country and be able to understand what is going on around you and to communicate with new people? Personally I think that knowing at least of one foreign language has a formative function, as it makes it possible to know various ways of thinking. Furthermore, it gives you an opportunity to become acquainted with a new culture and thus to enrich your knowledge.

However, English is not a simple language to learn. It only may seem easy in the beginning, but actually, to speak English fluently one must overcome numerous difficulties. Firstly, there’s a great problem of spelling and of a large number of exceptions to every rule. Thus, the bridge between basic knowledge and mastery takes a lot of efforts and a long time to cross. Generally speaking, there’re several main techniques that one should apply to learn English. These are listening, speaking and certainly writing. Through watching TV, listening to the radio and records you memorize more and more words and expressions that have been unknown to you before. Besides, you train your ear and memory, improve and correct the pronunciation. While speaking you develop the ability to communicate thoughts and express your feelings to other people. It’s for sure that there would be no progress in studying without regular reading. It is best to start with special texts in textbooks and only after that you may get down to reading literature in original to enrich your vocabulary. Writing is also a vital part of learning the language, because writing exercises, letters, essays are very helpful to memorize the spelling of words. In my opinion, applying all four techniques one can achieve good results in learning English, and I’m sure it will give them great satisfaction.