"I spent one and half month in southwestern Siberia in Altai Krai and Altai Republic where I collected data for my diploma thesis under my supervisor Miroslava Bavorova. Data have been collected by questionnaire survey during September and October 2018.
Altai Krai is the largest and leading agricultural region in whole Russia facing the lack of interest of youth in agricultural sector. The local government realize the issue and they adopt measures to increase attractiveness of agriculture especially for young people. My diploma thesis is focus on factors, in particular on prestige of occupation, influencing the choice of occupations and what is the cause of unwillingness of youth to work in agriculture. I surveyed students in Altai Krai, as a representative sample of future educated labor.
Although there were no more students from my university with me, I was never alone there, because I had a people around me willing to help me in any situation, including my supervisor, I could write an email at any time to her. I worked mainly at Altai State University with the help of academic staff and students mainly from Faculty of Mathematics and IT. I am grateful for the time Elena Ponkina and Anastasia Manicheva spent with me. They helped me with translation and communication with other academic staff.
I was the first student from Europe at their faculty and I hope they will host more students from abroad in future. The beginnings were not easy, but with their help I collected more than 400 respondents.
Beside working on data collection, I also had opportunity to visit for example Altai Mountains in Altai Republic, spend a weekend in Siberian Taiga with students from Geographical faculty, or visit Academgorodok in Novosibirsk, the research center of Central Siberia.
It was great experience for me full of challenging moments as well as very nice moments of interaction with locals. I would never change my decision to collect data in Altai Krai region"
Author: Lenka Hofierková
