Today's specialists are required to be actively involved, independent, flexible, original thinkers, and well trained both generally and professionally. Results of a sociological survey of 2,000 students at Urals State University indicate that a majority of students are at an average level of well-formed professional competence, and less than 1 percent was found to have a high level of competence. Lack of a single approach to addressing this issue prompted the author to formulate a contradiction between the established traditional forms of organizing the process of education and the need to introduce innovative approaches designed to form professional mobility and the ability to adapt to the democratic transformations in the society.