I should point out that now I've been in Russia for 2 weeks and I haven't started class yet. The bureaucracy & inadequacy of the programme here is unreal. We were told we'd be given a list of classes, to be taught in English, the day after we arrived and that we could choose about 5/6 and then they'd start on the 1st September. We were also told we'd have a full orientation session and be welcomed to Russia.
What actually happened was we were expected to make our own way to the offices at HSE (on the other side of Moscow) via the subway, somehow make it inside the building, find the right office, hand over money for dorms & other charges, and then go home. We were thrust into life in Moscow without a helping hand. Luckily a few of us actually spoke enough Russian to be able to buy subway tickets because those ladies in the station certainly don't speak English!
I've spent the past 2 weeks emailing, phoning and visiting a number of different departments and Professors all in the hope of being able to find classes I can take. I want all my classes to be in English so that I can actually understand what's going on. I'm not bothered if they're MA level because I don't actually have to pass anything for UCL, I just need to take class. It's a shame that this whole fiasco has negatively affected my experience here in Russia. I came here raring to start class and still haven't yet!
I've finally managed to sort out ONE class - Mergers & Acquisitions - (which is a 3rd year MA level class for specialist business Masters...) for Tuesday as the Professor's an American and he was nice and helpful. I might have another 2 on the cards, but one of them is a History of Russia class with the Math guys and the other is Russian Space & Russian State (the class I totally wanted to take above all) but it's not all set in stone! Grr!
I'm supposed to be in Russia to study and not to sit around worried or watching movies! I guess it's cool I've been able to wander around Moscow a bit but it's not that fun to do alone and also not realllllly that safe as a girl either. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have all my classes sorted out and I'll be in a proper routine. Lets hope & pray. Seriously please do. 
