Exchange report: University of Economics Prague

Transcription

1 Exchange report: University of Economics Prague Fall 2014 Antti Kukkola

2 Before the exchange After receiving the information of acceptance to University of Economics, Prague (VSE) from Aalto International services and accepting the place I was required to fill in an online application form for VSE. In the online application you need to enter your personal information, contact information and decide whether you want to stay at school dormitories or not. You also need to decide which dormitory block you want to stay in, however this choice doesn t really matter as all the dormitories are within a few hundred meters of each other. Going to Prague is easy and cheap. Depending on the dates flights are well under 200 and the flight takes a little over two hours. A good thing to note is that the Czech Republic does not use the Euro but the Czech crown instead with an exchange rate around 25-27CZK/1EUR. I arrived in Prague a week before the actual orientation week started so I had plenty of time to settle in. VSE has a Buddy System which assigns every exchange student a local student to help them with practicalities and getting around the first few days. My buddy contacted me about a month before I came to Prague and picked me up from the airport. She also helped me buy a public transport ticket (I was too old for the student discount, if you are under 26 you will want to wait for the school to start to get the student discount) and took me to the dormitories. This was nice as the dormitories are on the exact opposite side of the city from the airport. Having your buddy with you also helps when signing in to the dormitories (I lived in the F block) as there is only one woman in the reception who speaks any English. And even her English is very limited. Daily activities like getting your laundry done can be done with a combination of English and sign language, and despite the language barrier the reception ladies are generally pretty nice. Also, the reception is open 24/7, so if you have any issues you can go ask them at any time. The rooms in the dormitories are really basic but have everything you really need. Each apartment has two bedrooms of two people, a kitchen/living area (basically a kitchen), separate bathroom and toilet. The kitchen has a small refrigerator which really gets tight with four people and two hot plates. There is also a laundry room in the building, and some study/party/movie rooms that you can utilize. Arriving a week early worked perfectly for me. I met a lot of people before the school even started and managed to get situated a little in the city. Prague has an amazing public transport system which makes getting around the city really easy! I spent the first week meeting new people and enjoying the cheap beer. I met the people I mostly spent time with during the first few nights in the student pub Juve which is located right next to the dorms.

3 The Orientation week began on the 15 th of September. Most important lectures were the ones explaining how the schools information system ISIS works and where to find everything around the school. There were also a lot of optional lectures about culture shock and such, but most of the topic had already been covered back in Aalto. The Buddy System, which organizes all kinds of events and trips for exchange students also had activities during the orientation week. I went to visit a Beer Museum in Prague and also to the Ice Breaking Weekend at the end of the orientation week. During the exchange Traveling between the dorms, school and the city center is easy: tram 9 takes you to all three. That being said, the tram is absolutely PACKED when lectures end and before they begin. You should always give your seat to older people in the tram or prepare to be yelled at in Czech. The school has decent computer facilities, however the computers are in Czech which makes using them sometimes really painful bring your laptop! Printing costs a few cents per page but I had no need to print anything for any of my courses. At the school there are three restaurants and two cafes. Food at the restaurants is 50-80CZK (2-3 ) and is like school lunch in Finland usually not too good. One of the cafes also offers food, daily lunch for 80CZK and other meals for around 130CZK, that are usually really good. Also, there are lots of restaurants around the school, some of which are REALLY good. Some places also offer student discounts! There are plenty courses available for exchange students both on undergraduate and graduate levels. Most courses are in taught in English except for a few courses that are available also/only in German, French or Russian (these were very few). You can choose any courses you want, just remember the rules set by Aalto! The difficulty of the courses varies and is in no relation to the number of credits. On most courses the grading consisted of seminar attendance, term paper, presentation and final exam. Normal courses have two lectures per week, one of which is a seminar with mandatory attendance. Intensive courses mostly consist of three 8-hour days and give 3 credits. Basic Czech for foreigners 2RU135 Undergraduate, 3ECTS There were two different Czech language courses available, a six credit and a three credit one. I ended up taking the three credit course which only had one lecture per week. The grading was done based on attendance, a small presentation, mid-term and final exam.

4 Personally, I really enjoyed the course. While it was short the topics covered seemed to give a decent base for using Czech in some basic situations. Although, by the time you knew the most the exchange was already ending just learning some vocabulary helped in many cases. Knowing some Czech is really helpful as many people don t speak English, especially the women working at the dorms become more helpful if you can say something to them in Czech! Inequality, crises and 21 st century capitalism 5RE110 Graduate, 3ECTS This was the only intensive course I had during the semester. It was taught over six days, three hours of lectures each. The course was really easy in terms of completion: attendance, a group presentation and a group paper. The lecturer was really good and enthusiastic about the topics. The course concentrated on the definition and measurement of inequality, and how the financial crisis has changed the division of wealth. Also, there was a lot of discussion in the class about the topics and as the students were mostly exchange students this gave new perspectives. International security relations after the end of the cold war 2SM636 Graduate, 6ECTS This was my favorite course of the semester. While it was by far the most demanding with a fairly long term paper, presentation, exam and seminar attendance, the course was mostly really well planned. The course topics varied from definitions of security and other related terminology to discussing the effects of actors on the development of international relations. While the lectures were mostly history, the seminars focused on the study of international relations. The actual lectures I did not find too useful, as they were very detail oriented and progressed slowly. The seminars on the other hand were really interesting. Each seminar was assigned an article that was used as basis for discussion. Despite cold war being a part of the course name, the discussion was tied to current events. Each seminar also ended in a presentation which provided a more detailed look to one area of security. International trade for exchange students 2MO646 Graduate, 6ECTS As the name says this course was for exchange students only. The grading was based on seminar attendance, term paper, presentation and a final exam. The course focused on international organizations and practices connected to trading. Unfortunately the beginning of the course focused on really basic things for a graduate course and was not too useful at all. Fortunately, later on the content improved drastically and in the end the course was

5 OK. Also, the seminars really suffered from the late lecture time of 18:00-19:30 as everyone was already tired and the discussion was not too active. Knowledge discovery in databases 4IZ451 Graduate, 6ECTS Probably the most difficult course I took, though not because of the content. The grading was done based on two individual projects and a final exam. An interesting course about data mining processes and practices. The lectures were really informative, discussing different aspects, methods and technologies available for data mining. The seminars were software demonstrations of four different software that were also needed to complete the projects. The course was mostly really interesting and learning to use some data mining tools was useful. However, the biggest problem of the course was the lecturer s THICK Czech accent when speaking English which made it difficult to follow the teaching. This was mainly a problem during the seminars where you needed to follow his instructions while using the data mining software. Also, the instructions for the projects weren t very clear and I had to ask several times to really understand what was required. Free time and other information Czech Republic is generally a lot cheaper than Finland. Studying at VSE is free and the books you need for the courses are available at the school library. I stayed at the dormitories which was little under 500 for the entire semester and renting a room in an apartment with few other people closer to the city center won t break your bank either. Public transport in Prague is really good and takes you everywhere in the city, 24/7. With the student discount it also only costs about 10 /month! Ticket inspections are pretty common and the inspectors don t wear uniforms. Also, being caught without a ticket costs 800CZK, which is almost the price of the ticket for the entire semester Food is also cheap compared to Finland. Restaurants in the touristy areas are about twice as expensive (10 +) as ones a bit further away (5 +). Finding actually good restaurants is definitely a bit tricky but asking local students goes a long way. The Tavern near the school has really good food and Atmosphere, located by the river, is great as well. In Prague Prague has tons of things to see and most of them are around the city center. Aside from the most typical sights like the Castle and the Astronomical clock, the Zoo and most of the museums are

6 really worth seeing. Also, the Escape games are a ton of fun too! Going to hockey games is really cheap too, if you are interested, but the games can sometimes be really bad. The night life in Prague is amazing. You can find a party every night and there are very different places around. The easiest choice is obviously Juve, right next to the dorms. Perfect when you really don t feel like staying out too late or just want to have a few beers with friends. Only problem with Juve is the lack of ventilation (you can always open windows) combined with the chain smokers hanging out at the bar. U Sudu is a really nice bar near the city center. When you first step in it looks really small, but stairs at the back take you downstairs to catacomb-like tunnels with tables and bars with different beers. The Bar (yeah, how imaginative) has taps at each table. When you go in you go to a table, get glasses and pour your own beer. When you leave you pay based on how much beer you took out of the tap so try to avoid spilling! The place is very full in the weekends so you will want to book a table. Nebe is a really nice place to start your evening. It is both a bar and a club but the best time to go is during the happy hour when cocktail are 2 each! During other times the prices are fairly high compared to a lot of other places. Retro Music Hall is a large club two metro stations from the main square. It is one of the best places to go to in the weekend as it is always packed. Good music, good prices and great atmosphere. Chapeau Rouge offers alternative music and they have a DJs every night. The club has three floors: top floor is a bar, middle floor is a club and the basement has more alternative music. The place is still pretty small, so there is always enough people for it to look full. Very cheap for a club also and not too far from tram stop back to the dorms! Harley s Music Bar is always fun. They play rock classics and it s always full of people. That being said, you can only go there too often as they always play the same songs. In Czech Republic I didn t visit that many places in Czech Republic but at least Kutna Hora and Cesky Krumlov are worth visiting. The Buddy System organizes trips to both of these but I found organizing your own trips was more convenient.

7 I did a two day hiking trip to the Swiss Bohemian national park which was amazing. Best way to go there is probably renting a car, as it is cheaper than taking a train and bus if you are four people. Also, getting around in the national park aside from hiking is really tricky without a car. The national park was really beautiful and in just two days you can see a lot there. Hiking around is easy and the tracks are well marked. Traveling Europe Traveling around Europe from Prague is really easy and cheap. You can get bus tickets for as low as 10 for a one way trip if you get lucky. The only downside is sitting on a bus for 10 hours. There are plenty bus operators to choose from and trains run pretty conveniently too. I found busses to be the more comfortable option after a night train to Budapest. Budapest was amazing. Our hostel looked really scruffy but ended up being really nice for the 8 per night we paid. The city itself is beautiful, especially around the river where many of the important sights, like the castle and Parliament house are located. We also rented bikes for one afternoon as some of the things to see are a bit further away, 30ish minutes by bike. Our hostel was in the Jewish Quarter which is the center of the night life with tons of restaurants and bars to choose from. Krakow was good for a weekend trip combined with a day in Auschwitz. The old town and the castle you can see in a day and you should have one day for visiting Auschwitz. It easy to get to, we got a mini bus that picked us up from the hostel and took us back there in the afternoon. Going out in Krakow can be a bit tricky, we found out that sneakers and t-shirts are a no-no. Vienna is really beautiful, we basically spent the weekend just walking around in awe. While obviously more expensive than the Eastern Europe, it s definitely worth visiting. We were there in December just as the Christmas markets opened which was awesome (glühwein!!). If you like outdoors I would recommend visiting the Swiss Bohemia national park. It is about two hour away from Prague, by the German border. Really well marked paths and amazing scenery with decent services around. We opted renting cars to get there but you can also take a bus or a train to get there. However, cars were really useful in getting around (we stayed at a camping site a fair distance from the village), but other had no trouble getting around without one either.

8 Final comments I really enjoyed my semester in Prague. If you are looking for an intense semester studying in a demanding University Prague is not your choice. However, if you want interesting courses while still being able to travel and meet new people it is a great option. I met a lot of amazing people from all around the world during the exchange which was probably the most significant outcome of the semester abroad.