Department of International Polish Studies Semester/Year Abroad Programme in Polish Studies

  Poland

Krakow

Term: Academic Year, Fall, Spring 
Dates: September-December, February-June, September-June

Description: The Department of International Polish Studies offers students from other universites the chance to spend one semester or an entire academic year as a full-time student of the Department of IPS and the Jagiellonian University within the framework of the Study Abroad Programme. In this way, international students have the opportunity to experience and live in the metaphysical and time-honoured city of Kraków whilst studying at the most prestigious university in Poland. Today, the Jagiellonian University attracts over a thousand foreign students annually.

To answer their needs, the Department of IPS organizes lecture courses for international undergraduate students who will find in both Kraków and the Jagiellonian University an internationally renowned center of artistic creation and humanistic and scientific research. It is here that students have the chance to study in depth the most important issues and problems of contemporary culture that confront modern Polish Studies today while remaining dedicated to the historical context.

The offered curriculum, based upon highly original programs, is taught in English by distinguished experts from the most influential and leading academic centers in Poland (i.e. Kraków, Warszawa), important figures of artistic life, and also by professors from abroad.

The curriculum is run in five modules: Literature, Culture, Jewish Studies, History, and Language. To complete a semester, students are obliged to choose at least four courses from the offered curriculum, for which they receive 32 ECTS credit points (according to the European Credit Transfer System).

Students are not obliged to learn Polish language but are encouraged to include such courses in their own interdisciplinary curricula.

Highlights: Students will be placed in a university residence hall, affording them the best opportunity to meet and associate with Polish students. Additionally, tuition for all students includes four selected courses, including private tutorials and course materials; full access to the Department of IPS computer lab with broadband Internet access, all university libraries, and all other standard university facilities; dedicated support staff; orientation, culture shock workshops, and all cultural and tourist events organized by IPS; and transfer from the point of arrival to Kraków.

Following our belief in education in the field as well as in the classroom, IPS organizes several study excursions each semester, both within Poland and further afield. Destinations for the 2008-09 academic year include Warsaw; Zakopane and the Polish mountain regions; Gdansk, Kolobrzeg and the Baltic coast; a tour of shtetls in Poland; Vilnius, Lithuania; Lviv and Kiev, Ukraine; Budapest, Hungary; St. Petersburg, Russia; and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial and Museum. The costs of transportation, accommodation and organized, group cultural activities on these study trips are included in the package tuition fee.

Recognizing that for today's students, higher education is becoming a world that knows no borders and the demands of knowledge being an organizing principle of globalized societies, the Department of IPS maintains a database of available internships within the public and private sectors in Poland and the rest of Europe. The Department of IPS encourages and provides assistance for its students interested in seeking to gain the valuable practical experience that an internship offers upon the completion of studies at IPS.

Degree Level: Bachelors Degree (Undergraduate)

Cost in US$: USD5,000/semester

Experience Required: no

This Program is open to American, Australian, Canadian, European, Kiwi, South African and Worldwide Participants.

Participants Travel to Poland Independently

Application Process Involves:

• Letters of Reference
• Other
• Resume
• Transcript
• Written Application

Post-Program Services Include:

• Alumni Network
• Job and Internship Network

Department of International Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow's Mission Statement: Aiming towards the goal of augmenting and stimulating the intellectual and academic environment in Krakow, IPS looks toward the creation of an international and multicultural community of scholars and students dedicated to humanistic and artistic concerns and research. It is in this way that IPS intends to expand and enlarge the prominent scholarly center found in Krakow and the Jagiellonian University and to group those interested in establishing a fertile thinking circle at the heart of the central European melting pot of cultures. It is to this that IPS has established its educational activities. They will also encounter IPS as a venue in which to discuss the most important issues of contemporary culture with close reference to the past and present of the Polish cultural heritage.