Studying abroad for any student in any part of the world is a transformative
experience for them.
You really gain a lot from it.
It really changes you as a person because you're so invested in
taking in what's around you that you maybe forget about yourself
and then you kind of just become like a
part of something bigger.
Right now we are in the center very center of Prague
the old town it's a part of the city that was developed around 1,000
Prague is kind of like a storybook.
All the building our style to be in the
Renaissance art style and so as soon as you enter like the heart of Prague you
feel like you stepped back in time.
When I first went to Prague to found that I had to watch where I was walking
because I was constantly staring up at the
buildings and total admiration of everything around me.
it's a city where music, theater, film, performance means a lot.
I would say it's the identity.
It's a setting that allows one to feel creative and alive.
Study Abroad is incredibly important for students in education.
The opportunity with Prague is that it will
allow our students to take courses that meet general education requirements with
students from other colleges at NC State but to engage with faculty members from
Czech universities or other European universities.
The new assignment we have as NC State European Center in Prague
is to reach out to all university.
The new center, the physical space, really helps support that movement
because there are now bigger spaces where we can host a variety of classes
whether it be design studios for fashion students or lectures with slightly
larger class size.
It had a lot of courses for me to take like all my general
education classes I was able to fulfill in Prague and so kind of developing that
skill how to look at things and then transfer them back was really cool
to be able to apply to engineering.
And so forming partnerships have been critical
to us to provide opportunities for collaboration with our faculty and also
to bring their faculty into the classroom with our students
we're moving forward to be able to Think and Do the Extraordinary in a way that provides a
different stimulation than you have on campus at NC State.
The impact of study abroad on students is so broad.
I've seen them grow on a personal level.
Independence, maturity, critical thinking but a big focus is on understanding
their role as a global citizen.
My mom and I have always had this thing where
it's like if you don't jump you're never going to learn to fly so I definitely
think that this experience has helped me to get out there in the world a lot of
people from my community don't get a opportunity like this and I feel that I
will be an inspiration to my younger siblings and my younger cousins
and being on the other side of the world I feel that I had to mature more quickly.
I am ready to start my college journey.
Our graduates as teachers will become the eyes and
ears of thousands of students. So the experience in Prague that changes our
students lives will also change and the minds of others.
So overall, being at NC State Prague was
definitely like one of those life defining moments for me I learned just
about the world in general I think it really brought in my perspective it was
really cool to kind of immerse myself in a very different culture and a very
different lifestyle and then to come back here and sort of reflect on what
things I could be possibly doing differently here to make my life better