Academic Life
Blog #3
I have been in Olomouc for almost three weeks now! I can't believe how fast it is going already, it needs to slow down! I have been attending school through Palacky University and have really been enjoying the classes that our Nebraska group has been taking. The first week we were here, we had several guest speakers through our orientation telling us how much we would fall in love with the city and the university. This video was one of the first things we watched when we got to Olomouc and I don't think it could describe the city/university or our experiences any better.
Every week day we have class for about four hours in the afternoon. We have three different classes including Czech language (which is unbelievably hard), history and culture. I have really enjoyed our professors so far. They really try to keep us engaged with activities so it isn't just straight lecture all the time, and they speak great english. We study things that we are actually going to see on our field trips so we really can draw connections between the lectures in class and the monuments, buildings, statues, etc. we see while we are out and about. How cool is it that we are close enough to take field trips to some of this world's most historical places!? We have studied some events that I have had lectures on in the past but it is like a new story when you hear it from another perspective and how their particular country handled it. I think this experience so far has helped me become more open minded as well as opened my eyes to see how much even little things affect each country.
Czech Language as I mentioned before is pretty difficult. On our first day in Olomouc I remember one of the guest speakers at orientation say "You will quickly find out that us Czechs make everything much more complicated than they need to be." It seems like that is the case with the language as well but I have been able to start picking up bits and pieces of conversations. (Hello, please, my name is.., random food words, bye). Also, if you have been following my blog, you know how I have been having problems getting non-sparkling water when I try and order just a plain regular water. I have finally learned how to ask for still water in Czech so I no longer have to suffer trying to drink it sparkling. (This happened to me probably 10 times before I figured this out.) Neperlivá voda, prosím :)
A really cool thing that happened to me was becoming suite-mates with some pre-med students. There are two girls in our suite that have been studying here for a couple years now and it is neat to compare some of the classes that I have taken as a pre-nursing student with theirs and to talk about their future in health care and what it will be like for them to be doctors in this country. I was not expecting to run into this opportunity but I am learning so much about how the health care system works here and how it is different from ours!
Olomouc is a University City as the video above kind of talks about! 1/4th of the population is college students. Most students from the Czech Republic stay here for college because they receive free tuition. (How nice is that...) After talking to several local students it seems as if the trend here is going home on the weekends and doing the more college life/hanging out with friends during the week. Since the country is so small and the train system can get you anywhere in the country in about three hours tops, it is easy for them to get home for the weekend quickly.
We have language homework on a regular basis but that is about the only outside of class work we have had to do so far! I am really looking forward to the things we have on our list to study this semester and the three field trips we have left that accompany those topics. But we have the next two weeks off for a field trip and spring break so we will pick back up with the studying mid April. :)
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