Written by Jay Hadfield, Summer 2024 and Academic Year 2024-2025 FLAS Fellow for advanced Russian

This summer I received a FLAS Fellowship to study Russian at Middlebury College’s School of Russian. I am a graduate student in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures’ combined MA/PhD program, now beginning my second year, and chose Middlebury with very specific goals in mind. After finishing my bachelor’s degree (and graduating into the thick of the pandemic in 2020), I spent three years working and, well, surviving, generally making very little use of my Russian. In that time my language skills atrophied, and when I returned to grad school in Autumn of 2023, I was acutely aware of how out of practice I was. Fortunately, jumping back into Russian classes helped me to catch back up, but my fluency still wasn’t where I wanted it to be — especially as a Graduate Teaching Assistant of Russian. What I really needed, I could tell, was practice.

To get the immersive language experience, you really have two main choices: go abroad to a Russian-speaking country, or go to a domestic summer language program. Unfortunately, the current political climate makes travel to Russia prohibitively complicated. There are, however, other Russian language programs hosted in nearby countries. But I remembered something from my undergraduate study abroad experience (a semester in St Petersburg in 2018): even abroad, people speak a lot of English. In all likelihood, you will have English-speaking peers, the coordinators of your program will likely communicate with you in English, and some locals will just be eager to practice English with you. When I studied in Russia, my peers and I spoke English all the time (even when I would rather have practiced my Russian). This is what attracted me to Middlebury, renowned for their no-nonsense language pledge, according to which all students speak exclusively in the target language for the duration of the eight-week program.

Middlebury was not the only domestic program I looked at, but they have a hard-earned reputation as the gold standard for Russian summer language programs. They also offer a six-week graduate course, and when I first applied, they reached out to confirm whether I wouldn’t rather enroll in the graduate program. I decided to stay in the main “undergraduate” program for two reasons: it is two weeks longer than the graduate course (eight versus six); and it seemed to be more geared towards a focus on language learning. Of course, both programs adhere to the language pledge and involve extensive practice, but the graduate program is more focused on “content courses in Russian” than “Russian language courses.” In the end, this was the right decision: those extra two weeks were valuable, and having designated grammar and phonetics classes helped immensely.

Middlebury is, on paper, more expensive than similar summer programs, but thanks to our university’s FLAS options and relationship with the program, Middlebury was able to offer funding to cover the remainder of the tuition with their in-house scholarships. This meant that I only had to worry about my travel costs (which in my case were covered by a FLAS travel award ) and the cost of my rent back home (which you might avoid if your lease ends at the start of summer or offset by subletting). All-in-all, I was able to completely fund my time at Middlebury, where I made substantial gains in Russian fluency and, importantly, had a fun time! 

Although the academic side of the program can be intense, it is offset with ample opportunities to participate in social and cultural events. I met some great folks and made friends with whom I plan to stay in touch, like other graduate students in the Slavic Studies field whom I’ll likely continue to run into at conferences for years to come. Even though I was kept plenty busy with class work, there was still time to go swim in the lakes of Vermont and hang out with new friends — which, mind you, was some of the best language practice I got! One of the strengths of the language pledge is that it forces you to stop limiting yourself to “classroom language,” and start practicing in real, everyday conversation. Even though not every student strictly adhered to the pledge, my friends and I did, and we all made great progress as students of Russian. I would readily recommend Middlebury’s Russian program to any interested student, graduate or undergraduate, and would encourage them to look into FLAS options for funding.

Applications for summer 2025 and academic year 2025-26 FLAS funding will be opening in November 2024. To learn more about this opportunity, click the link below.

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