Which university to choose in order to become a programmer?

Question

IT education

Please advise a university with a good teaching staff in St. Petersburg. So far, the only thing I have found is NRU ITMO, LETI, Polytechnic University and St. Petersburg State University. Is it just worth looking at the scores or is it still to give preference to a particular university? So far I'm choosing between the faculties of information systems and technology and software engineering. I hand over informatics, prof matan and Russian. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

For some time I studied at ITMO and LETI, here's what I can say about these universities:
LETI - I don’t recommend it at all, the program is very old, and the teachers (at least those with whom I came across) are afraid to take any step away from it, and the attitude towards students there is so-so (although there are exceptions), in the end, if we consider the knowledge gained in the aggregate for the time spent, it’s absolutely not worth it. Instead, pay attention to St. Petersburg State University of Technology - many students from LETI run there en masse after their first year, freaking out from indifference and sovietness.
ITMO is a completely different story: one feels that they really want to teach something useful, they are familiar with modern developments. During my studies, I have never encountered rudeness or unfair treatment, the attitude towards students is very good both from the teachers and from the dean's office. It is not very difficult to study, they will not drive in knowledge by force, but if you really want to study, there will be no problems. I was pleased with extracurricular activities at the department, some teachers organize it themselves - on some of them they managed to work with interesting hardware, for example, with terminals and ATMs; I know guys who also entered Machine Learning outside of class at the university.
By faculties: ITIP (software engineering and information systems) prepares mainly olympiads, is considered the local elite, it is difficult to enter, studying is even more difficult, they teach algorithms and matan, the level of Computer Science knowledge at the output is impressive, there will not be so many practical skills, but I do not think that any of the graduates will have problems getting them. KTIU (where I studied) is a simpler and more practical option, there is more freedom and less hellish theory, but "megaminds" come out of ITIP.
By the way, about practical skills - in the very first semester, on one of the basic subjects, they will approximately say that "those who will not work in their specialty in the 3rd year are at risk of getting a diploma, which at the end will not be particularly needed without additional knowledge ", and this is very true - real experience will be much more useful at that stage, and the program from the 3rd year is more loyal to this type of activity. The advice is pretty universal for any university, it seems to me.
Now not my personal experience, but what I heard from others:
St. Petersburg State University: IT-directions are similar to the description of ITIP, a lot of matan and algorithms, but in the same way other people come out of there - the Durov brothers as an example. A longtime competitor of ITMO at all international Olympiads. It also makes sense to look there for broad fundamental specialties like "Mathematics" - it's very difficult, but this is 100% the first place in education in St. Petersburg, and top 5 in Russia.
I haven’t heard much about the Polytechnic University, my acquaintances study there mainly in specialties related to physics, I haven’t heard about special breakthroughs in IT, but the university itself is sensible and there is no negative about it.
In summary, in my opinion:
If you are interested in hardcore, algorithms, matan and classical Computer Science - ITMO (ITIP), St. Petersburg State University.
Optimal for those who do not want to hardcore, but are ready for self-education: ITMO (KTIU).
If you don’t have enough points at ITMO, go to the Polytechnic University, if you don’t have enough points for it, go to St. Petersburg State University of Technology.
LETI to bypass.

Answer 2

coursera + upwork. Someone can throw stones, but you will get little real knowledge at the university, a drop of experience in general. Niu itmo first in priority, the rest is a fallback

Answer 3

To become a programmer, you must either take online courses or read books. Universities will teach you algorithms and data structures, but not the frameworks that you have to constantly work with. What about frameworks, they most likely won’t even explain to you how the CLR works in .NET or what’s under the hood of any other language / platform. You will have to learn all this yourself by reading Richter. But as everyone says, you need to get a crust for show