LinnéaWedsberg
UniversityofEconomicsPrague,VT16
Why I chose to study at VSE, University of Economics
I chose to study one semester abroad in Prague, which I do not regret at all! I was not sure if I
wanted to go on an exchange semester at first, there were so many things at home that could
have kept me here. But one of the main reasons why I left was that I wanted to challenge
myself, to improve my English and have a lot of fun. How I ended up in Prague and not in
any other city is pretty simple. It is cheap (!), located great for travelling in Europe and the
buddy system organized a lot of activities and parties for us exchange students.
The school and education
The courses in Prague were very easy to pass compared to the ones at SU. Therefor I didn’t
need to study that much even thought I took 8 courses while I was there. A lot you may think,
but 2 of them were so called intensives. Which means that I had lecture for a couple of days/a
week and then the final exam right away. If you want to have more free time during your
semester I definitely recommend you to take as many intensives as you can.
These were the courses I took:
•
Supply Chain Management 3ECTS (Intensive)
•
Creativity, Innovation, Entrepreneurship for economic development 3ECTS
(Intensive)
•
Business Ethics 4ECTS
•
Basics or project management 3ECTS
•
Human resource seminar 4ECTS (I recommend)
•
Strategic leadership and management of the CSR 4ECTS (I recommend)
•
Economics of life 5ECTS
•
Economics and psychology 4ECTS
You read all of the courses at the same time and then have an exam period at the end of the
semester. This makes you have a lot of spare time in the beginning.
It is really worth putting some effort into planning your schedule well. I only had classes on
Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. If possible, try to be free on Wednesdays since the party
of the week is on Tuesdays!
The contact with the University was excellent. They emailed me all of the information I
needed before my arrival and also during my stay. Besides the information from school I
could also ask my Czech buddy Natalia for advice and help if needed. Every exchange student
had the chance to have a buddy during the semester. Mine picked me up at the airport and
helped me my first week by showing me around the campus and helped with all the formal
papers.
Accomandation
The school provides dormitories for exchange students so I did not need to find my own
place. I thought that was very convenient especially since most of the exchange students staid
in the dorms and the tram took me directly to school in about 20 minutes. I shared a room
with a girl from America, and then kitchen and bathroom with two more girls. Not directly
idyllic, but I thought it was okay anyway since it was for a short amount of time and very
cheap! I only paid about 11.000 CZK, which is around 3900 SEK, for the whole semester. It
was also possible to rent a single bedroom as well, but that was twice as expensive.
This is what my side of the shared room looked like.
What advice would you give other students who would like to study at the
university at which you chose to spend your semester abroad?
I’d say just go for it! I was nervous at the beginning but everything turned out to be great.
Prague is an amazing city to explore, not just the architecture and the old town, but also the
many great restaurants and loads of cheap bars!
If you want to travel it is best to do so in the beginning of the semester. I went to Vienna,
Budapest, Madrid and Brno (the second largest city in Czech Republic). One thing you should
bare in mind, it is better if you travel with some friends instead of joining the trips buddy
system is organizing since those trips usually aren’t that efficient. I do recommend the other
activities they organize though, like pub-crawls and pub-quizzes.
If you want to meet new friends before the schools starts you should join the “ice-breakingweekend” they organize the weekend before the semester starts. You go away for a whole
weekend with the other exchange students to get to know each other and party.
If you are there during the spring semester I can really recommend you to go on Majáles,
which is a day festival for students located at the end station of one of the metro lines.
Last but not least, enjoy every single day of your time abroad especially since the semester is
so short. It felt like I was home again in a blink of an eye!
If you have any questions feel free to contact me: [email protected]