Five ANR-Lab Research Assistants enrolled in HSE Doctoral School of Sociology

Five members of the ANR-Lab have just successfully passed the entrance exams and are accepted for the PhD programme in Sociology at HSE. Each of them has its own story and its own path, but one thing unites them - they all came to their cherished goal. Congratulations to our colleagues!

Three of the research assistants and newly PhD students are graduates of our master's programme “Applied Statistics with Network Analysis” - Polina Lushnikova, Grigory Khvatsky and Rustam Kamalov. Two are graduates of the master's programme “Comparative Social Research” - Aryuna Radnaeva and Anna Sokol.

Aryuna Radnaeva

My history of entering graduate school began a long time ago. Even while studying at Novosibirsk State University at the Faculty of Economics, Department of Sociology, somewhere in the Academy Forest, I thought about a scientific career. “Maybe I should become a researcher-sociologist,” I thought. It was always very interesting for me to study, participate in discussions, present at conferences, write scientific papers. After receiving a bachelor’s diploma at NSU, I waited a year, and then entered the HSE English-language master's programme “Comparative Social Research”. There I was already carried away by network analysis in sociology. After graduation, I again waited a year and entered the graduate school. I hope that I will be able to maintain my enthusiasm for learning and the ability to be inspired by scientific research.

Polina Lushnikova

My path to the academic environment was sudden for me and to some extent a “life with the flow”. As a student of undergraduate studies, I did not want to continue my education, I thought it would be enough to have a bachelor's degree to find a job in business intelligence and be successful. It so happened that by chance I ended up on a course on network analysis, which was taught by Valentina Kuskova. Thanks to her, I realized that research can be interesting and I can learn to use data analysis methods that show interesting and unusual results, but which are difficult to imagine in corporations. Then I realized that I wanted to study further and I entered the master's programme MASNA and began to work in ANR-Lab. In Dmitry Zaitsev’s policy network research group, I finally realized that research is really cool. We started working on a project that turned out to be more extensive than we originally assumed - from here the idea of ​​my admission to graduate school was born.
Due to my nature, I tried to refuse admission - not because I did not want to, but because I was afraid to screw up. I was convinced to try. In fact, everyone believed in me, except for myself, and I am grateful to everyone who was with me and who believed. My story taught me that not always “life with the flow” is bad, because sometimes, when you don’t know what lies ahead, it’s better to give in. All the accidents are not accidental, and what is most important is to find people who will believe in you and support, no matter what happens.

Rustam Kamalov

My academic career began by chance. Being second year bachelor student, I did not even think about the possibility of building my career in the scientific research. However, by chance, I ended up in the newly opened International Laboratory for Applied Network Research under the direction of Valentina Kuskova. While working in the ANR-Lab, I realized the full potential of the advanced data analysis and decided to change the path of my education from an economic to a more method-oriented one. So I ended up at MASNA. After graduating from the master's programme, I began to work in the Dmitry Zaitsev’s group, which is engaged in the analysis of policy networks. Around the same time, I received an unexpected offer to go to PhD school. For a long time, because of the complete absence of a sociological background, I finally decided to give it a try. In preparation for the exams, I was convinced that I would fail. My head was torn by the amount of new information and it seemed that in the exam I would forget everything and I would just silently look at the commission. Fortunately, this did not happen. During the preparation, my colleagues supported me in every possible way, starting from encouraging words and ending with the organization of collective training sessions, for which I am very grateful to each of them. I look forward to starting my studies!