Bad program but looooooooooved traveling and being in Europe! Past Review
By A student (Near East and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University) - abroad from 01/24/2013 to 05/15/2013 with
CET Prague
I gained so much from traveling. Honestly, since I did not like my program and Shabbat was difficult, I tried to travel as much as possible and I had such great experiences, mostly meeting up with brandeis friends who were studying in other countries during the semester. That aspect was worthwhile, but the program was so bad that I think I could have traveled at another time, maybe over the summer and skipped the program. I definitely would do it again if it was a different program.
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 6 months+ |
Review Your Program
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* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
The courses were mostly uninteresting, with work and papers only due at the very end of the semester. The professors did not really seem to care about our interest in the courses and would give 3 hour long lectures while half the class was falling asleep. They then expected us to write research papers with such limited resources since we basically only had the CET library. |
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* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
I am an observant Jew and keep shabbat and holidays. Although they were somewhat accomodating, especially in the first few weeks, when Passover came around they would not give me excused absences for missing class on the holiday. They were not generous about absences in general and you would need a doctors note if you were sick. It felt like we were being treated like we were in middle school-they were always checking up on us in terms of homework assignments and attendance and would not let us deal with the professor directly about these things. at on point a professor had told me that I can miss a class for a certain reason and then the administration counted it against me because I did not ask them first. |
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* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
It was fine. There was a bathroom and a kitchen but the shower curtain always fell in the bathroom and there was not enough storage space in the bedrooms. They also had told me that they would place me close to the Jewish community so I would not have to take public transportation on Shabbat, but they failed to do that making it uncomfortable for me every single weekend |
| * Food: |
they rarely rarely gave us food and when they did there were no kosher options. |
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* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
They never really integrated us. My room did not have a czech buddy, which was unfortunate and besides that they did not assist us in integrating with the culture, we had to do it all on our own. |
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* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
I had no experience with health care. |
| * Safety: |
seemed safe enough to me. no issues. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
No
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Finances
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* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
cheap city. |
| Not including program expenses, about how much money did you spend on food and other expenses each week? | $30 |
Language
| * Did your program have a foreign language component? | Yes |
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How much did the program encourage you to use the language?
0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language |
Only once when they took us to a local restaurant and we had to order in Czech. |
| How would you rate your language skills at the beginning of the program? | None |
| How would you rate your language skills at the end of the program? | Beginner |
| What was the highest level language course you had completed prior to departure? | none |
| How many hours per day did you use the language? | 0 |
| Do you have any tips/advice on the best ways to practice the language for future study abroad participants? | in stores and restaurants, just order and talk to the people in Czech. It's a hard language so that's probably the most that you can do. |
Other Program Information
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* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
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* Who did you live with?
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* Who did you take classes with?
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| About how many local friends did you make that you will likely keep in touch with? | 0 |
A Look Back
| * What did you like most about the program? |
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| * What could be improved? |
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| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | if I knew before what I know now, I would not have gone on the program, for sure. I would have studied abroad but somewhere else. |
