Future Conference Interpreters of ASU May Be Employed by United Nations

Ms. Natalia Kobleva, an editor of the Russian Translation Service of the UN Secretariat (New York, USA), has visited Astrakhan State University. She has delivered a cycle of classes for our students and told them about prospects of a university graduate.

It is Ms. Kobleva’s first visit to ASU. However, the United Nations specialists have been to ASU many times. They supervise training of highly qualified interpreters and translators at the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting & Translation (CHSIT) of ASU.

Ms. Natalia Kobleva came to the CHSIT after its Director Prof. Olga Egorova had invited her. The two specialists started cooperating in Moscow at the eighth annual seminar that took place at the UN Information Center. Prof. Egorova told about training of interpreters and translators at ASU at that event; her presentation impressed representatives of the United Nations and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is when future master classes were planned; now that several months have passed, those master classes have been delivered to our students.

Ms. Kobleva gave a number of lectures to our CHSIT students, as well as workshops based on everyday activities of UN interpreters and translators. Already at the initial class, she highly appreciated our students’ skills, as well as their striving to obtain new knowledge. “Your students are splendid”, she remarked, “Their knowledge is so profound. They coped with their trial task very well”. She also pointed out that the CHSIT graduates have bright prospects of further employment. Ms. Kobleva said that the UN now offers a distance-training program. Such programs help the UN train qualified staff that meets its needs. Thanks to online training, interpreters and translators can contact their Russian and foreign colleagues interactively.

Ms. Kobleva remarked that Astrakhan State University has the right base to become a site of the UN interactive training afterwards; the level of training at the CHSIT helps its graduates apply for such a prestigious training program. In the future, they could become members of staff of the United Nations.