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RSL and Academics

In addition to the RSL program, North American students choose from among Smolny's course offerings, finding a balance of courses that reflect their academic interests, while engaging in intensive Russian language study. The majority of courses offered at Smolny are in Russian. Students taking courses in Russian for credit can expect to read 100-200 pages per week in Russian for each class, to contribute to class discussion in Russian, and to write academic papers in Russian.

RSL at Smolny is designed to link up closely with the academic courses that individual students take. This way the program will support your successful participation in these courses. In addition to classroom instruction in RSL, all instructors have regular office hours for individual consultations in academic reading and writing. You are encouraged to use these individual meetings to review content and homework from any of your classes.

Additionally, The RSL program employs Smolny students as peer tutors to help North American students prepare their reading and written assignments for academic courses. Generally, each student has the option of meeting with a tutor for up to two hours a week. Tutors are available to help go over points of particular difficulty, including grammar and linguistic questions.

Here are actual semester course plans of North American students who have recently studied at Smolny. All classes are in Russian unless otherwise indicated.