Hello! I'm writing this post, hoping that any of you can help me find out some inside information about ITMO university.
I want to study either at a very popular university with a high prestige that will give me a clear advantage at hiring (throughout many other of its advantages), either to a very good university with enough free time scheduled, with very good professors and where I can have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers. Universities like Cambridge, Oxford, MIT fit very well in this typology. From what I have heard, for example, there you can benefit of a very good interactive system so that you can get answers to your questions.
I have recently heard of ITMO. I know that it produced a lot of very good competitive programmers, so, at least in computer science, the theory is taught very well. That's why I want to know if this university fits in the second type (free time, good professors assigned to a very small group of students), if you are taught other subjects that you won't need as a software engineer, how much free time you have and what extra-activities does it offer.
I would also want to know, if I consider that this university offers what I want, what are the schooling and accommodation taxes, if it offers scholarships and social aids and what does the application process requires (a language exam and other specific exams for computer science).
As a summary, I want to know if it worth the effort of learning a new language only to study at this university. Thank you in advance!
Well, if somebody wins a gold medal at the IOI and then goes to a university, does this mean that the person is a good programmer because of the university?
PS. I don't know about ITMO, the teaching may be good or bad.
I don't refer to people that were already Olympians, but to those that started programming at this university and become very good in a short time. A good example is Evgeny Kapun (eatmore) that hasn't participated to any IOI and now he is a legendary grandmaster and world champion at ICPC 2012. I also heard from some friends about people like him but I don't remember exactly the name. About the teaching, it should be good because they have very good professors like Andrew Stankevich who is the ITMO ACM-ICPC teams trainer.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by Theodor1000 (previous revision, new revision, compare).
I think that the requirement to Russian language will be too high. Successfully to study at the Russian universities, it is necessary to understand also other objects, including not belonging to specialty. The principles of the higher education underlain in the USSR say that the student of the Russian university has to be harmoniously developed personality R) That is the nobility not only a subject to which it studies
Thank you very much!