Tag Archives: Prague

Academics, Alexandria, Student Life, Study Abroad

Czech it Out- Cultural Excursions

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In Old Town Square before our walking tour!

Yet another installment of my summer abroad experience!

While in the study abroad program, you have a cultural liaison who is affiliated with UT (usually a masters or PhD student) that is familiar with the culture and fluent in the language. Your liaison is responsible for organizing cultural events every week so you get a good taste of the culture in your short time abroad.

Our liaison was Jaro, a UT PhD student from Slovakia, and he did an excellent job organizing our events so we would get a feel for the distinctive culture in Prague.

The cultural event for our first week was an extensive walking tour of the city so we could get our bearings. This was very informal and a good way to start to get to know our fellow MPA students also in Prague. Prague is a city rich with history: stretching back from being the cultural center of the Holy Roman Empire under Emperor Charles IV, being invaded by Prussians, becoming the capital of Czechoslovakia, being invaded by Nazis, being taken over by communist powers at the end of WWII, to leading the Velvet Revolution to end the communist regime. Prague also is one of the most picturesque cities in the world with it beautiful baroque architecture that is everywhere you turn. The only unfortunate thing about the walking tour is that we found ourselves in the worst flood of the decade (and a nation-wide state of emergency) so some of the areas close to the Vltava river, including the famous Charles Bridge, were closed.

Jaro leading our tour in the Communist Museum

The next week, Jaro was our personal tour guide through the Prague Communist museum. Jaro shared his personal experience growing up in a communist country, and the experiences of his family during the communist regime. This is where the effect of Communism became really apparent, and it became impossible to ignore how often you saw its impact on the city throughout the rest of the trip.

Prague is a city famous for its jazz music. Some go as far to say it’s the best city next to New Orleans for jazz in the world. The city has many famous jazz clubs where all the American greats have performed out. Even Bill Clinton graced the citizens of Prague with a performance on the saxophone while he was here as US president. Jaro booked us a jazz river cruise for the night after our exam for Professor Kamas’ half of the course. I think he was so nice to us since we missed the river sights on our earlier cultural experiences due to flooding. We enjoyed the company of our fellow MPAs, Professor Kamas and his wife, wonderful jazz music, and the beautiful sights of the Prague waterfront.

Our last cultural experience was a visit to the opera. Prague is famous for its opera, and it was definitely a … hmmm, how do I say this…. cultural experience. So, it turns out opera is not my cup of tea, but it was still a wonderful experience and I can now say that I have attended an opera!

 

Academics, Alexandria, Student Life, Study Abroad

Czech it Out- Guided Weekend Excursion

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This past summer, the Paris and Prague MPA Summer Programs offered a UT led cultural excursion for the first weekend of the program. The one we went on for the Prague program was fantastic, and it included visiting the following places:

(Warning, this blog post is mostly pictures, because they do such a better job at describing the places we got to visit)

Karlštejn Castle- This was the castle of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor that brought Prague to cultural prominence under his reign. The castle was beautiful and located in the beautiful Czech country side

 

 

 
Pilsner Urquell Factory- Pilser Urquell is the preeminent beer of the Czech Republic, which is saying something because beer is a huge part of the Czech culture. From a manufacturing perspective, this factory was fascinating because only 23 people worked in the factory and they were able to produce enough beer to satisfy a nation of frequent beer consumers.

 

 

Plzen- This town is where US troops came to expel German troops from in WWII. In fact, there is a street called “Amerika” and a monument on the street saying “Thank you USA!” that thanks the US troops and General Patton for what they did for their country.
 

 

Graphite Mine- After spending the night in Plzen, we suited up and headed into the depths of a graphite mine. This was something we will never have the opportunity to see again. The saddest part is we probably will never get to see the equipment again either, which is a little devastating.

 

 

 

Czesky Krumlov- This town was the last stop on our weekend excursion, and was absolutely stunning, The weather was perfect, and the views superb. I could have stayed here all day and still not enjoyed enough of its beauty.

 

 

 

 

Return next week for Part 4 of Ally’s Czech It Out series!

Academics, Alexandria, Student Life, Study Abroad

Czech it Out – UT Classes Abroad

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Visiting the Skoda manufacturing floor in our Safety Gear

As I said in my earlier blog, the MPA summer programs allow you to take two accounting elective courses in a foreign country: one led by UT faculty, and one led by faculty at the host university.

I’ve already discussed the Czech faculty I had the privilege of taking classes with, so now it’s time to talk about my UT faculty led course.

The course was split up between UT Professors Kamas and Koonce. Before I dive into the subject matter they taught, I would like to point out that these courses aren’t like any MPA courses you can take in Austin. Not only are they in a foreign country, but the faculty get to set their own curricula. This means that they get to lecture on whatever they are passionate about, and their passion definitely comes across in their teaching.

Professor Kamas led the first half of the course, and focused on managerial accounting and financial statement analysis. We discussed what considerations international firms take into account in order to manage their profits and strategy effectively. The course material really hit home because Professor Kamas used cases of international firms and brought in his own copious experience of running a business. Professor Kamas had a Big 4 partner come to the classroom and discuss the challenges of moving from the US to a foreign country with our class. We also enjoyed the luxury of seeing what we were learning in the classroom applied to an actual multinational company. We went on a company visit of Skoda (the largest car manufacturer in the Czech Republic), and learned about accounting and the strategy challenges of trying to expand internationally.

The second half of the course was led by Professor Koonce. To give you some background on her course material, Professor Koonce is the top experimental researcher in financial reporting according to the most recent BYU rankings of accounting research (go Professor Koonce!). She introduced us to experimental research in accounting by lecturing on the basics of judgment and decision making and how the concepts overlapped with accounting. This was probably the most fascinating class I have taken in my time in the MPA Program. We are lucky to have such wonderful faculty teaching us, but teaching is such a small part of some of their jobs. So much of their time is dedicated to research, and we really have no idea what is involved in this. Hearing about the basics of what our faculty are up to when they are not in the classroom was an unbelievable experience.

Click here to continue to Part 3 of Ally’s Czech It Out Adventures!

Academics, Student Life, Study Abroad

Czech It Out- Classes in a Different Country

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A group of Texas MPAs overlooking scenic Prague

This past summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the MPA Summer Program in Prague. This is the first of my many installments called “Czech It Out” where I document my experience abroad.

For those of you unfamiliar with the MPA summer programs, students go abroad for 5 weeks and take 2 accounting elective courses. 1 course is taught by UT professors, and the other by professors at the host university.

Students that venture to Prague attend VSE, the economics school, and take a class on European Accounting in Europe taught by a combination of 3 professors from Prague.

As to be expected there were several cultural differences that students noticed in the classroom. The first of which is that the Czech style of teaching is much more lecture based than the classes of their UT counterparts. They did not really ask for student participation and seemed thrown off when students raised their hands in the middle of lectures.

They also did not “hold our hands” at all. For example, when we asked Professor Zarova what she wanted to see in the group presentation and paper she assigned, she replied “Oh, whatever you feel is important.” Most of us MPAs didn’t know what to do after being provided very descriptive rubrics for each of our projects in Austin.

From the perspective of enhancing your accounting education, I could not recommend a better thing to do. First of all, Czech classes were fascinating in that the country is still recovering from 40 years of communism. I had no idea what an influence communism still played on the Prague culture and economy today. It really hit home when our professors told us that in 1991, when the Soviet Block fell, all their degrees lost all of their value because the only masters and doctorate degrees they could receive were in Leninism and Stalinism. Once communism fell, they had to go to the US and UK to reacquire their credentials in capitalism and learn how the capitalist system worked.

It was also fascinating hearing about US GAAP and IFRS convergence efforts from a European perspective. I never understood why it would be so hard to find a compromise, but after learning the stark cultural and business differences amongst European countries, I have a much better understanding of the complexities that arise with convergence efforts.

Click here to continue to Part 2 of Ally’s Czech It Out Adventures!