I, student myself, interviewed Gulnar Asgarova, a student of English Language
and Literature, who tells about her experience with study at Masaryk University and her life in
Brno.
For many years
Masaryk University has been one of the most prestigious institutions of higher
education in Central Europe. What convinced you to join our university?
Besides Masaryk, I had several more options, yet
Masaryk 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 Masaryk staff 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 a large
number of extra-curricular activities held by International Student Club like
Language Exchange, field trips, visits to children shelters and so on.
Are you
satisfied with your study at Masaryk University in general?
The education system here totally met my expectations
despite the fact it is completely different from what I was used to back in
Azerbaijan.
Information
system: Masaryk University has a modern information system that allows you to
organise your studies over the internet, without needles paperwork, queues, and
extra tips. Are you satisfied with the
Information System of Masaryk University (IS)?
The Information System is of great help as we can
sign up for the finals, learn our results, contact our professors and
classmates and get to know Czech Educational System better, but the only thing
I dislike is some information is only available in Czech, so even if you switch
the language to English, you will see it in Czech.
As far as your
studies at The Department of English and American Studies are concerned, are
you satisfied with the range of subjects you can attend? Do you think that
professors are professionals in their fields?
I cannot deny the fact that there is a wide range of
subjects for us to choose either seminars or lectured related to our major.
However, sometimes it is hard to get an exceptional acceptance to enroll in
certain subjects since we international students have not taken the
prerequisites earlier at Masaryk rather at our home university. And the
professors whose classes I have taken so far are specialized in their field.
The only drawback would be lack of activities in language classes like Russian
and Czech.
Do you find
professors' attitude towards assessing your work objective?
I have never experienced a case of a teacher
assessing my work unfairly.
There has been
a growing interest on the part of international students, whose numbers doubled
in recent years. (They made up 15% of its 45,000 students in 2013). Would you
recommend Masaryk University to another potential international student?
I would recommend Masaryk University with a great
pleasure.
What are the
positive aspects of studying at Masaryk University as an international student?
Are there any negative sides?
What I love most about Masaryk is no matter how hard
classes you attend, you never feel any burden you, by which I mean if you do
your work regularly, the efforts you put will be appreciated. I personally
understood the real meaning of education here at Masaryk and can surely say
every international student will be amazed by how responsible and qualified the
teachers are! A negative side would be clash of class times, which means you
may want to take 2 classes that are both on the same day and at the same time,
so you have to cancel one of them. In my opinion, Masaryk can work on this
issue and find a solution.
Now, let’s
turn to life in Brno. Do you like the city?
Brno, former Moravian capital and 2nd biggest city in
Czech Republic, is a historical city with 400 000 inhabitants, most of which
are students. It is thus called "The City of Students". You can spend
time in nature, woods, lake, parks, castles and cathedrals dating back to
medieval centuries. Moreover, you have access to modern life.
Any favourite
restaurants or pubs?
Vytopna is my most favourite restaurant in Brno
because it serves drinks that come on trains. Stopkova is another fabulous
restaurant where you taste typical Czech food for a reasonable price. In
"Sunset" you can see the whole city.
Do you find
Brno’s cultural life diverse and sufficient? Did you recently attend some
cultural event you enjoyed and want to recommend it?
In May I attended the biggest festival of the year
Majales where there were 21 000 people. Different boutiques selling traditional
food, most famous bands from Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria and fireworks
were what made it special. Besides, I attended the food festival in Spilberk
castle and the Firework Show over Brno's lake both of which added so much joy
to my stay here in Brno.
What was your
best experience, or the funniest moment in Brno?
It is hard to pick the funniest moment out of a
million, but I gotta do it :) A few months ago I tried rafting in Brno's river
with my international friends.
