Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Engaged Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Engaged Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies takes what you’re learning in your courses and puts it into practice through internships, research, study away, winter term, career exploration, and beyond.

Here’s a sampling of recent projects, field experiences, and post-graduate destinations for Russian and REES majors.

RISE at Oberlin
Research. Internships. Study Away. Experiential Learning.

Ways Russian and REEES Majors Rise

Research

  • “A Dream Deferred”: Olga Berggolts and Disillusionment in the USSR, 1945-1954
  • The Vagrant: Where the Soviet Love of Bollywood Began
  • The Underground Soviet: Shaping Soviet Culture in the Leningrad Metro
  • Night Thoughts: Existentialism and Russian Romantic Poetry

Internships

  • The Great Baikal Trail Project, Siberia
  • The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
  • Presidential Physics and Mathematics Lyceum 239, St. Petersburg
  • The Jewish Museum, Riga, Latvia
  • Pheasant’s Tears Winery, Sighnaghi, Georgia

Study Away

  • Bard/Smolny College of Liberal Arts & Sciences in St. Petersburg
  • Middlebury School in Russia: Irkutsk, Moscow, Yaroslavl

Experiential Learning

  • Live or spend time in the immersive environment of Russian House, a small, coed residence hall that is the hub of Russian-related activities (lectures, films, poetry readings, teas, cooking sessions) at Oberlin.
  • Teach Russian through our student-driven Winter Term Elementary Russian Intensive.
  • Practice literary translation and present your work at Oberlin’s annual Translation Symposium.
  • Spend a summer or semester working in-country for nonprofits through OCREECAS (Oberlin Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies) Internships.

First Destinations of Recent Russian and REEES Majors

  • Fulbright Fellows:

    In the past decade, 10 majors have spent a year teaching in Russia and Azerbaijan as Fulbright fellows; last year one of our majors won a Princeton-in-Asia Fellowship.

  • Positions:
    • Journalist for The Moscow Times
    • Assistant to the provost at European University at St. Petersburg
    • Sommelier at Pheasant’s Tears Winery in the Republic of Georgia
    • Scout for the N.Y. Yankees
    • Business development associate for Hornblower Cruises in Calif.
    • Risk consultant for Morgan Stanley
    • Student coordinator of international and English language programs in Washington
    • English language teacher at Language Link in Moscow
    • Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan
  • Graduate Schools:

    Our students have entered top graduate programs in literature, history, and politics at Columbia, Brown, Yale, Oxford, Wisconsin, NYU, Georgetown, Berkeley, Middlebury, University of Chicago and elsewhere.