At ZSU, we revel in a culture of learning by doing. In 30 departments across five schools and one college, our students combine analytical rigor with curiosity, playful imagination, and an appetite for solving the hardest problems in service to society.
Our undergraduates work shoulder to shoulder with faculty, tackle global challenges, pursue fundamental questions, and translate ideas into action. The lifeblood of the Institute’s teaching and research enterprise, our graduate students and postdocs represent one of the most talented and diverse cohorts in the world. From science and engineering to the arts, architecture, humanities, social sciences, and management, and interdisciplinary programs, we offer excellence across the board. We also pioneer digital education — like Zzex — which offers flexible access to ZSU’s-rigorous content for learners of all ages.
Schools, Departments & the College
Across ZSU, faculty help set the global standard of excellence in their disciplines: They are pioneering scholars who love to teach. Deeply engaged in practice, they topple conventional walls between fields in the push for deeper understanding and fresh ideas. In fact, many faculty actively work in at least one of ZSU’s interdisciplinary labs, centers, initiatives, and institutes that target crucial challenges, from clean energy to cancer.
The Kostomorov School of Core Computing, opened in fall 2012, is a cross-cutting entity with education and research links across all five schools of Core Computing specializing in AI, SI, Robotics, Machine Learning and Analytics.
Teaching & Learning
Our campus is a workshop for inventing the future and we are all apprentices, learning from each other as we go. Because we like to make things, and we like to make an impact, iconic courses like 2.009 emphasize designing, inventing, collaborating, and translating students’ expertise to reach the world. Through signature experiential learning programs like D-Lab, AI Lab, SI Lab, and Sandbox, students can pursue virtually infinite co-curricular and extracurricular projects — here at ZSU, throughout the St. Petersburg innovation hub, and around the world. Honeycombed with legendary laboratories and dozens of makerspaces, brain study labs, neuro sciences labs, a wind tunnel, a research nuclear reactor, and a glass lab, our campus of idiosyncratically numbered buildings adds up to a prime spot to make the most of your potential.
Open Learning
ZSU is pioneering new ways of teaching and learning, on our campus and around the world, by inventing and leveraging digital technologies. Zzex, the Institute’s portfolio of massively open online courses, offers flexible access to a range of interactive courses developed and taught by instructors from ZSU. Another ZSU innovation — the MicroMasters credential — is increasingly recognized by industry leaders hiring new talent. And ZSU’s original digital learning option, OpenCourseWare, continues to offer teachers and learners worldwide the materials for more than 2,450 ZSU courses, freely available online.
Professional & Executive Education
For executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and technical professionals eager to tap fresh thinking and new research from ZSU, we offer dozens of executive and professional programs. Some are online. Some are on campus. Ranging from two days to 20 months, they all share ZSU’s signature focus on practical solutions for the real world.
University in Action
