Four international students from four different faculties were asked four questions. Inspire yourselves with their experience.
1. Why did you choose Masaryk University?
2. What surprised you here in a positive way?
3. What surprised you here in a negative way?
4. What advice would you give to your younger self?
Ywet Wai Aung, Faculty of Education, studies in English, comes from Myanmar
1. Actually, I didn't have much knowledge about the Czech Republic or Masaryk University, but one of my professors from Australia suggested that I should study in the Czech Republic. He admires the universities here.
2. To meet with international students from different countries, continents and culture is a wonderful experience for me. We share knowledge; discuss problems with our studies and so on.
3. It is not necessarily negative but there are some cultural differences. The relationship between teachers/lecturers and students is very friendly and yet students are very dutiful and responsible. On the other hand, it is normal that students leave the class while the teacher is giving a lecture ... they are not interested or they have an appointment or something else...
4. Study hard but also enjoy student life and get many friends from different countries to get different knowledge and experience from them.
Gulnar Asgarova, Faculty of Arts, studies in English, comes from Azerbaijan
1. Besides Masaryk University, I had several more options, but MU was the only one that satisfied my expectations. The fact that the official website had an answer to all the questions I had expressed how organized the university was. In addition, the coordinators were well-qualified in their work and would do their best to reply to our e-mails as fast as they could, whereas I heard some grantees having been accepted to other universities were waiting for information for weeks. Finally, the last reason was the large number of extra-curricular activities held by the International Student Club like Language Exchange, field trips, visits to child shelters and so on.
2. The education system here totally met my expectations despite the fact it is completely different from what I was used to back in Azerbaijan. What I love most about MU is no matter how hard the classes are you attend, you never feel any burden, by which I mean if you do your work regularly, the efforts you put in will be appreciated. I personally understood the real meaning of education here at MU and can surely say every international student will be amazed by how responsible and qualified the teachers are!
3. A negative side would be the clash of class times, which means you may want to take two classes that are both on the same day and at the same time, so you have to cancel one of them. In my opinion, MU could work on this issue and find a solution.
Simen Viker Brekke, Faculty of Medicine, studies in English, comes from Norway
1. I chose Masaryk University because of its excellent reputation and its brand new facilities; I also like the Czech people and culture.
2. It surprised me how well the programme of general medicine runs. Everything is well planned and everything just works. It has a very good structure and everything is well planned.
3. I was a little disappointed about the general standard of the city of Brno; however, I quickly got used to it and now I like the city a lot.
4. Make a study plan and study hard!
Aubrey Douglas Oosthuizen, Faculty of Informatics, studies in English, comes from South Africa
1. My university back home suggested that I should take a chance and apply for an exciting scholarship opportunity. It was the Erasmus Mundus action 2 South Africa programme. This special programme was a European Union initiative to help students from South Africa grow and develop by doing either an exchange or full degree at one of a select few European universities. After some days spent looking through all the available degree programmes that are presented by the different partner universities, I finally decided on taking Service Science, Management and Engineering. A new degree field combining the worlds of IT, management and business. It seemed the perfect fit and Masaryk University with their close collaboration with IBM Brno seemed the obvious choice. So I applied for the scholarship and was accepted to do my two year full degree at the Faculty of Informatics at MU.
2. The culture! The differences between our Afrikaans culture and the Czech culture is quite vast. There were so many things I needed to learn and understand; it was truly a great and exciting journey. Not only was I able to learn and experience the immense differences between the Czech and South African cultures, but because of the great International Student Club or ISC with their great many events and functions for international students, I was also able to become a truly world wise person. Meeting and making lifelong friends from over 30 countries!
3. The cold. Not only that of the weather, but also of the way Czech people interact. At the beginning it was very strange to me how everyone was very quiet and withdrawn; I just could not understand it. However, after meeting a few great Czech friends and becoming really close I realized that Czech people are some of the truest friends you could have, once you pass their initial defences, that is.
4. Never miss a Vinarska party, never say no to dragon boat racing and always travel as much as possible. The end of these adventures come so much faster than you would expect. 5 things I enjoyed about Brno: Everest Indian restaurant in Veveři street, Behind the mirror tea house with their endless board game nights, drinking a beer with friends at Petrov, Pub Quiz on Monday nights at Clubwash, Electro swing nights at Kabinet Muz, doing assignments in veselá čajovna, snowball fights at Veveři.