A student for two months now

The first day, the first lesson, the first and unforgettable experience: English Composition. I will never forget the lesson, as much as I might want to. I was convinced that nothing could puzzle me. After all, I had passed the International Baccalaureate, taken English lessons and written essays like there was no tomorrow.

I started to doubt my abilities the very moment that the teacher, just radiating majesty, entered the classroom. Prior to saying anything, she wrote the two ways that we were allowed to address her in on the blackboard, along with a list of ways we were supposed to immediately forget. She then handed out sheets of paper and told us to write an essay. She smiled slyly, expecting us all to perform the same – poorly. And she was right. I remember the hopeless expressions in my schoolmates’ faces, as we looked at each other and realized that we were caught in an academic trap that no one escapes unscathed. The same facial expressions appear every week as Ms. Aljoe (one of the permitted salutations) fills the blackboard with assignments for the next lesson. I’m afraid I’m developing a deformity. I tend to underline “topic sentences” in newspaper articles, assess if the “thesis statement is not a fact but generalization (but not too general)”, and check how much the last sentence of the essay conforms to the thesis.

The atmosphere gets more relaxed at psychology lessons, and if the level of serotonine in students could be measured, the demand for Prozac would drop significantly in favor of demand for lessons with Michael Johnson. As part of our psychology lessons, we also had an opportunity to see Philip Zimbardo’s presentation on his Stanford Prison Experiment, a lecture by Dr. James Boster from the University of Connecticut, and more. Then there is the Psychological Society – basically the same concept as the Student Council, but for a smaller community; it organizes the famous (and my favorite) Movie Nights for psychology students only. We agree on a film we want to watch and get a pizza with it to really savor the evening. The showings are followed by discussions in the vein of those at csfd.cz, except that ours are live. Many such events happen at the school’s expense. Sadly, you can’t manage them all. Their chief purpose is to let students of all nationalities mingle. UNYP is basically a microcosm of America, which works as a “melting pot” for many nationalities.

Time to proceed to the academic bits. Our school is one of the few that allow their students to obtain both the US and the European bachelor’s degrees at once (the American Bachelor and the European Bachelor, respectively). In addition, its Psychology specialization obtained Czech accreditation last year. The impatient ones will appreciate summer courses allowing them to obtain the American Bachelor degree in three years – one year earlier than standard. Following the bachelor’s degree, you can of course go on and obtain a Master’s degree.

I have been a student of the University of New York in Prague for just two months, which have passed by so quickly, but I can say now that I will do all I can to successfully graduate from this university, if only for the diploma ceremony held at the Žofín palace every year.