Experience report
Name: Femke Schemkes
E-mail:f.schemkes@tilburguniversity.edu
Exchange semester: summer semester 2015
Academic year:2014-2015
Host University: Charles University Prague
Country: Czech Republic
Admission, arrival, housing
I arrived on Monday, the 9th of February, early in the morning. Before I left to the Czech Republic, the
Buddy Program of the Faculty of Law of Charles University had contacted me if I wanted to participate
in the Buddy program. This program offered a buddy for the whole semester and that the buddy could
pick you up from the airport or trainstation and bring you to your accommodation. My buddy picked
me up from the airport and brought me to the dormitory where I would stay, Troja in Prague 7. She
helped me with the check in in the dormitory, which was really nice because she spoke Czech so she
could translate a little when needed.
Charles University offers a stay in dormitories for their students. You stay with two people in one
room. I stayed in the dormitory Troja for 1,5 months before I moved to the city centre. I think that
starting off in a dormitory is a good way to meet people, because a lot of international students
choose for this kind of accommodation. You have to apply for these dormitories beforehand, and you
need to pay a deposit. The prices to stay in the dormitories are low, although if you move out earlier
than you gave up for, you need to pay a fine (at my dormitory this was around 3000 Czech crowns). I
also met a lot of students who booked their accommodation through an studentagency, through the
Facebookpage ‘Flatshare in Prague’ or stayed in a hostel the first few days, visited several rooms and
then picked one. Finding accommodation in Prague is not that hard and not expensive, so it depends
what you want, but I could recommend doing it both ways.
The faculty of social sciences had an introduction week for their students, where also students from
other faculties could participate in. On Thursday was the introductionday for the students of the faculty
of Law. I took part in some parties of the general introductionweek and in the introductionday for law
students. At the introductionday they explained us where we would have classes, where we could
pick up our readers, a tour throught the faculty building and they pointed the Buddy Program out.
Location of university/city
I think Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been. It is clean, has a lot of historical
buildings and a lot of history to tell. I also liked the fact that the city centre of Prague is not that big.
Because of the good public transportation, it does not take you long to get anywhere in the city.
Charles University has different faculties throughout the whole town. The faculty of Law is located
near the Letna parc, on the other side of the river. You just cross a bridge and then you are at Letna’s
metronome, or you walk the other way for a couple of minutes and you are at Old Town Square, so I
think the location of the faculty of Law is quite a good one. The University does have a coffee corner
and a lunch place, which is pretty good. It has a sportsvenue, although I need to say that I did not use
it, because I did not feel the need to exercise. But I do know there are several sport centres in Prague
that are good and cheap. Because the city has a lot of parks and areas where you can run well, some
of my friends went jogging in Prague.
Prague as a very active nightlife. When we would go out we usually would go near Old Town Square
or in the area of the street Dlouha. In the city centre are quite a few nice bars, but I also used to go a
lot to Vzkovna (the Dogsbar). For dinner we went a lot to Clear Head, a good vegetarian restaurant. In
the area of Zizkov are a lot of cool, small bars and cheaper restaurants than in the city centre.
Whenever we wanted to find something new we would use the app Tripadvisor. During the day when
the weather was not (yet) that good, we would usually hang out in cafés for a coffee and a piece of
pie. When the spring and summer started we usually hung out at one of the cities beergardens. I
would strongly recommend Riegrovy Sady, because of the pretty view.
I think the biggest difference with Tilburg is, is that Prague has a lot of green areas, such as the parcs
and the beergardens. Also it has a lot more interesting and different bars and cafés than in Tilburg.
Because for us going out and having dinner is way cheaper than here in the Netherlands, I would
more often go and have dinner and meet my friends there.
Academics
I took six courses. Commercial Law and International Transactions (6 ECTS), Czech law in European
Context (6 ECTS), Czech Criminal Law (6 ECTS), Contracts and Torts (3 ECTS) and Labour Law and
Social Security Law (3 ECTS), and the basic Czech Language Course (2 ECTS). I took these courses
because I liked these courses in the Netherlands as well. I took the three courses of 6 ECTS because
I thought they were interesting and I needed 24 ECTS for my Erasmus scholarship and my bachelor, I
exchanged one course of 6 ECTS with the two smaller courses of 3 ECTS because I thought these
would be more interesting. The Czech language course did I take, because I wanted to know a little
bit about the language.
I would recommend the Commercial Law and International Transactions and Czech Criminal Law,
Contracts and Torts and the Czech Language courses, because they were the ones I thought were
most interesting. The others were ok, but I would not recommend them.
I choose these courses before I arrived in Prague, but at the introduction day we were being told that
Charles University offered for the first time also master courses for us. At that time I did not want to
take them and thought they could be a little bit too hard, but in hindsight I think these would have
been less basic and more interesting.
These courses did not add that much to my current program, although I now know more about the
communist impact on the legal system in the Czech Republic, which I think is good to have had this
eye-opener for me. It was strange for me to not use a law book this semester. Also it was actually
quite hard to learn a law, but not how it is applied in different cases. I think this would have room for
improvement.
The university provides the reading materials for the courses, so you do not have to buy any books.
The level of English was in certain courses quite high, in others quite low. But you learn how to
manage with the different accents certain lecturers speak, although this makes some courses harder
to understand.
All of our courses were thought in one lecture room in the third floor of the faculty building. This was
easy so you always know where to go. I also think the place where the faculty building was, was a
perfect spot, because it was near the city centre.
Social life
There are several studentorganizations in Prague, private ones or from the university itself. They
organize day- or weekendtrips, parties, exchange of language with local or other students, activities
as going to an ice hockey game, a canoeing trip etc.
I did not meet up that much with local students, because the courses I took were only for international
students. I did meet up with my buddy a couple of times. The most friends I had were other
international students that I met through classes or through parties and other friends.
With the other students we organized some trips ourselves as well.We organized our own trips to
Pilzen, Kutna Hora, Karlovy Vary, Terezin, Velka Amerika and Bratislava. I joined an organized trip to
Krakow and an organized canoeing trip from Charles University up the Vlatva river. From Prague it is
quite easy and cheap to travel by bus, train or car to other countries and there are a lot of pretty
places in the Czech Republic worth visiting.
Living costs
My budget of going to Prague consisted of the Erasmus grant, my education grant of the Dutch
government and some money I saved before. The living expenses, apart for going out and having
dinner were quite the same as in Tilburg. I paid just as much rent in my flatshare in Prague as I do in
Tilburg and also groceries are not much cheaper over there. Apart from that, having dinner, going out
and the costs for travel are a lot cheaper in the Czech Republic. I think I spend most of my money on
going out and having dinner, because we did that most of the time.
I spend €140,- for my room in the dormitory, and €300,- for my room in my flatshare (which is average
for a room in a flatshare in Prague). I think I spend around €25,- a week on groceries, and spend a
little bit more on having coffee, dinner and going out. I did not have to buy my textbooks, so I did not
spend any money on that.
Culture
I did not really experience a culture shock while I was in Prague, but of course there are some things
different than in The Netherlands. For a lot of Czech people English is quite a hard language and they
sometimes do not really want to make an effort to understand you. I think this is one of the things that
annoyed me, but that I already knew of the Czech Republic before I went there. What is also different
from the Netherlands, is that it is not as effective in helping people in bars, cafés or on festivals for
instance. Furthermore, Czech people come across as very closed and distand if you do not know
them.
I realized more the over that Dutch people are really direct and say what they think, which a lot of
other nationalities do not. I did know this before, but I realize more how rude you this can look, even
though we think we only say how we feel about a certain topic. I think I will take that in and will not be
as direct as I used to be, or putting my things in another way so you do not come across as so rude.
Personal development
As I said before, I learned that I can be really direct, what can be considered rude. I am trying to
change that for a little bit. I also learned to take things a little more slowly and not to stress out
immediately that much about things. I did not expect myself to be so comfortable in a whole group of
new people, so I think I grew in that aspect as well.
I think my best experience was the canoeing trip we did, for four days going up the Vlatva river. It was
so much fun and we did this with nice people. I think that in hindsight, halfway through my exchange I
was a little homesick, even though I did not realized it at that point. I think I can count that as my worst
experience, because I did not feel good for almost a week.
I do not think that I would do anything different in my exchange, I think it was so good just the way it
was right now. Even though there were some downs, there were also a lot of ups.
I think I will always remember my overall experience: that even at one point it seems to be difficult,
you can get past things you did not think before.
Tips for future students
I would definitely recommend an exchange period, you face things that you would not have faced
before I think, and you will get more confident in what you can or cannot do.
I would recommend Charles University, because I did not encounter any serious problems with the
university. The problems I faced, were solved right away.
I think the most important thing is that you take you necessary things (such as your passport and
debit-/creditcard) with you and keep in mind that if you did not bring a thing, most of the times you can
just buy it upon arrival there.
I do not think you need any real preparation required for going on an exchange, apart from the stuff
that was said to me in the departure guide that I got from Tilburg University. As long as you follow
that, I think you have everything you need.