ESN Pilsen

Where to find us?

ESN Pilsen – official seat
The University of West Bohemia in Pilsen
The International Office
Univerzitní 8 
306 14 Plzeň

ESN Pilsen – club seat
Bolevecká 30
306 14 Plzeň

www.esn.zcu.cz

esn@students.zcu.cz

Our university:

University of West Bohemia, Pilsen

How many members do we have?

ESN Pilsen has about 10 active members and 80 buddies.
In winter term our section looks after 97 foreign students.

Who are we and what do we do?

ESN Pilsen was established by the International Office of the University of West Bohemia (UWB) and aims to provide a support to the international students studying at this university as well as to the students of this university who would like to spend a half or whole year of their studies at a university abroad. ESN Pilsen is a non-profit organisation and consists only of the students who try to help the international students and to make their stay in Pilsen and at UWB more pleasant. It also integrates the international students with the czech ones.

Every term several international students study at all faculties of UWB. Most of them come within the Socrates/Erasmus programme which is available also for Czech students.

The club mediates very first contact between the international and the Czech students when the Czech student helps the international student with the accomodation and carries other administrative stuff out. The Czechs introduce to their foreign buddy the university, the city, the Czech republic and the czech traditions in witty and funny way. ESN team prepare the conditions for arranging the Countries' presentations where the international students come from, the visit of some interesting parts of Pilsen and famous places in the Czech republic, and other cultural activities focused on the typical Czech customs and traditions with the participation of the Czech students.

Another target of ESN Pilsen is to focus on the support to the Czech students who want to go to study abroad. They could get a lot of useul information about the studies at the foreign universities which they are interested in. These information are provided by the students who went to study abroad and are willing to tell us about their experiences, and then, directly by the international students who are on their exchange here in Pilsen.

ESN Pilsen was integrated to the international organization called Erasmus Student Network (ESN) at the beginning of the year 2007. ESN International unites the clubs of the similar goal around Europe, which enables the cooperation with the other universities abroad, and obtains new experience. This allows to improve the quality of the service which ESN Pilsen provides.
 

The organisation organizes many regular activities, such as :

• Orientation week (the first week of the international students´stay in Pilsen; presentation of the town, arrangement of the administrative stuff and getting to know the other interantional students as well as the czech ones)
• Trips and excursions around the Czech Republic (Prague, Karlovy Vary, Moravia, Český Krumlov, Karlštejn...) – enable the international students to get know czech culture, national habits and the Czech Republic by means of some trips around this country and Pilsen.
• Sport activities (week-end ski trip, bike trip, tournaments of squash, visit of the Pilsen´s sport fields, paintball,...)
• Evening parties focused on the czech habits (Saint Nicolas, Easter, ...)
• Countries presentations – imrovement of the knowledge of czech students about other countries (europeans and other) by means of regular and gratis presentations
• Language teaching – teaching of some foreign languages by the interantional students (native speakers), conversational courses, completely free
• Ball ESN Pilsen – prepared for the international and czech students, presentation of the czech traditions

Each student of any faculty of the UWB has a chance to join many of our activities together with the international students every academic year. It is a great opportunity to improve the knowledge of foreign languages directly with the native speakers. The Czech students also could show their ideas and organisational skills which are usually required by any employers.

Our most successful projects

ESN Pilsen has participated in a competition called The Section in a Spotlight which is arranged for all sections joined in ESN International. The winner of the competition gets the award according to its work, enthusiasm, pallomeri spirit and skills. ESN Pilsen has won the first round of the competition for April 2010.

Our succes was based on coordinating of the Student's Ball, which took place at the beginning of March 2010, and where our section cooperated with other students' organizations.
ESN Pilsen is as well a good example for other sections. We organized a section meeting with ESN Winterthur in November 2009, and this project has given us chance to share know-how of both sections, and has laid down the first stone of cooperation between University of West Bohemia and University in Winterthur (Switzerland).

And one of the oldest successful project which has have roots in a year 2008. ESN Pilsen has decided that year to prepare a conference called National Platform (for 4 days) for all the sections here in the Czech Republic on the universitys' chateau Nečtiny.