The Prague Post
May 17th, 2008
Reader's SurveyNEW     Endowment Fund     Book of Lists ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Prague Center Hotel

Home » Archives » Schools & Education

Exchange students take over Prague

City sees spike in those coming for university studies

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
March 28th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Prague College students Karina Kayfadzhyan, Brendan Donnellan and Elaine Matawaran.
Tourists aren’t the only ones crowding the streets of Prague these days. Over the past several years, the city has also seen a steady growth in the number of foreign students choosing to do part or all of their higher-education studies in the Czech capital.
The U.S. Embassy, citing estimates from the Fulbright Program, says there are approximately 2,500 American students currently studying in the Czech Republic. And, according to administrators at Prague College, an increasing number of British students are heading east to escape the sharp rise in university tuition fees at home.
As Laura Wohrizek, a Canadian student currently enrolled at Charles University, puts it, “Prague is seen as a good option for exchange, because it’s cheaper to live here than in surrounding countries and because of its advantageous location to other good travel spots.”
She adds, however, “I know that Prague has a reputation for being a ‘party city,’ and that ‘serious students’ don’t frequently come here.” But “I loved the city. I knew I wanted to live here at some point, so studying here was as good an excuse as any to come.”
Undoubtedly, the reasons behind a move to Prague are inherently varied. But one thing is clear — students are coming to the country by the dozens, which, in turn, has driven up the number of new programs and schools opening around the capital.
The University Studies Abroad Consortium, a coalition of study-abroad programs from more than 30 U.S. colleges and universities, recently saw its first drop in students enrolling in Prague studies programs, and attributes the decline to the busier marketplace.
“We experienced a steady increase up until this current year,” which fell from 134 American students in USAC’s Prague 2006 programs to 106, says Susie Askew, the consortium’s enrollment-services director. “I would say our numbers dropped slightly due to the fact there are so many competitors in Prague now that offer study programs for U.S. students.”
Still, USAC’s current numbers are more than double what they were four years ago. In 2003, 41 students from the United States studied in Prague with USAC. The next year, that number jumped to 95.
Jeff Buehler, an academic adviser and program coordinator at Prague College, says students enroll for a variety of reasons but credits the school’s course offerings as one of its most significant draws. Founded in 2004, Prague College’s curriculum is in line with the UK degree system, according to Buehler, which is another reason why it is attractive to prospective students.
“There definitely, I think, is an increase in interest from students in English-speaking countries,” he says, particularly the United Kingdom, where recent tuition hikes have forced more British students to look abroad.
“It puts studying abroad in a much better light,” Buehler says. “In the beginning, [the number of native English-speaking students] was quite low, but in the last year it’s changed dramatically.”
For instance, he notes, about one-third of the students in Prague College’s graphic-design program, he says, hail from English-speaking countries.
Universities have also noticed many of their foreign students are eager to learn more about Czech culture.
“In part because of this growing interest from American students and universities, we are offering six-week summer courses on the arts, politics, economics, history and beverages of the Czech Republic and the greater Central European region,” says Karolína Hamzová, a marketing coordinator at the University of New York, Prague.
UNYP’s student population includes students from almost 70 different countries, including from Canada, the United States and Great Britain.
At the other end of the city, New York University’s Prague Center reports it has also seen an enrollment spike.
“It is increasing slowly, but increasing” nonetheless, says Marta Fleischhansová, a program coordinator at NYU. “Eight years ago we started at about 18 students.” Today, there are 140 students in the program.
“Students usually come here because of some specific programs which aren’t held in any other study-abroad program, or they heard from their friends that it is cool here. Some of them have relatives here,” Fleischhansová says.
Family is one of the reasons Wohrizek, a political science student from the University of Calgary, decided to spend some time studying abroad.
“My dad was born and raised in Czechoslovakia. I wanted to learn about my family heritage and hopefully a bit of the language,” she says.
Wohrizek was also impressed by the reputation Charles University has in Central Europe. The university announced a few months ago that the 2006–07 school year has the highest number of exchange students enrolled to date, Wohrizek says.
“Many international students approach their semester or year here as a holiday, essentially,” she adds. “I approached last semester as an opportunity to explore different topics that I couldn’t study at home, as well as classes that would be made more interesting in a cross-cultural environment.”

Brooke Edge can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


survey banner


Other articles in Schools & Education (28/03/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Book of Lists

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.