Focus on Prague

Bertrand Cournaud, InfoSPE student at EPITA is about to end his semester abroad. He has spent 5 months in Prague, Czech Republic, thanks to the Erasmus exchange program and has liked this experience …

“My first year at EPITA, InfoSUP, was quite new for me of course, with a totally different rhythm compared to high school. The first semester of the second year, InfoSPE, was the continuity of the InfoSUP-year, but the main difference is the second semester abroad, which I was really looking forward to.

I chose Prague for different reasons. The main one is that I really wanted to be in a language immersion. This semester was a unique chance to improve my English and I knew that only two of us decided to go there. So when I arrived in Prague, I wasn’t with any other French students and I was forced to speak English (which is exactly what I wanted). I spent most of my semester speaking English with people with various nationalities (Spanish, German, Italian, Hungarian, Latvian, Swedish, Finnish, American, etc.). I’m really happy that I managed to spend most of the semester speaking English.

The Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) is a very famous university. I followed 7 different classes there and all of them were very good. The teachers at CTU are very professional and friendly at the same time. So I studied for one semester in a very good atmosphere.

I discovered here a different way of studying; the university way of doing things, which is different compared to EPITA. And as we were in English classes with almost only foreign students, the teachers were nice and they adapted their classes.

On top of that, the “Erasmus spirit” allowed me to meet a lot of people, because everyone is open and ready to talk. Even if I spent more time with foreign students than with Czech students, the ones I met were very nice.

 Before I left EPITA, I saw a presentation made by students who went to Prague the past years and they seemed really happy about the time they had spent there. That’s why I wanted to go there, too.

In addition to that, the cost of living is a lot cheaper than in most of the others countries (Ireland, England, Germany, Spain).

Even if I didn’t go to the others countries, I spoke with friends who went there and I think that I really made the best decision for my semester (especially because of the English immersion idea), and I really recommend to anyone who wants to improve his/her English and have a great time to go in Prague.”