Professor shares first semester experience

[caption id="attachment_10266" align="alignnone" width="741"] Students of Slavic Club with Professor Shiloff (far left) and Professor Kuchta (far right).
Photo courtesy of Slavic Club's Facebook[/caption] According to Confucius, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Now as we wrap up the semester, the first one for me at Seton Hall University, I am certain that I most certainly will not have to work a single day teaching at Seton Hall University. I will simply be enjoying the process of educating my students and sharing my culture with them. As I began my career here at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, I was very excited about this position. I am a graduate from Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, Russia, and I always had a strong desire to be involved in linguistics. There is no denying the fact that the study of languages is infinite: as life goes on, the languages change and develop and this is what makes teaching foreign languages challenging, but yet highly interesting. The importance of language subjects for our students is utmost. We live in the world of business globalization, and it is essential for many professionals to speak various foreign languages. It did not take me long to realize how fortunate I was to be a member of SHU’s big community, the faculty of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at our University is undoubtedly devoted to excellence. On the very first teaching day, all of our Russian instructors welcomed me. Being a new faculty member I paid close attention to everything going on inside of the Department and the University itself. What I have experienced is something that gives me as a freshman educator even more incentive to contribute to Seton Hall University, the school that always remains sensitive to students’ unique needs and creates the best possible environment for their successful studying. In conclusion, I would like to thank our Russian program coordinator Professor Anna Kuchta who possesses excellent organizational skills and knows how to foster close teacher – student relationships and represents the head of our Russian family here at Seton Hall University with dignity, my wonderful co-worker Professor Tatiana Shiloff who  was so eager to share her teaching experience with me and make the adjustment to my new teaching position easy, she is someone whose love for her students as well as the subject she teaches is admirable Professor Liliya Brammer who is a true educator able to create the atmosphere of successful studying in her classes and, of course, my students whose perseverance and diligence throughout the entire semester were the reason for me to pick the quote by Confucius and make it my professional life motto. Enjoy your summer break, everyone! See you in September! Students can pursue the Russian and East European Studies Program through two separate 18-credit minor program (Russian Language or Russian and Eastern European Studies) or a 30-credit certificate program. Tatianna Shiloff and Lilya Brammar teach in the Russian department and are both originally from Russia. Anna Kuchta is from Poland and has been teaching at Seton Hall since at least 1990 when she founded what is now known as Slavic Club. This SHU student organization meets on Thursday nights to share different Slavic cultures, including Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Slovak, Russian and more. They host movies, speakers, informal dances and trips to Slavic restaurants and to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY.  Professor Kalyanov can be reached at artem.kalyanov@shu.edu.