Charles University, Prague

There's no bursaries or any sort of student financial support in Prague and I probably would have gone to SGU, but it's twice as expensive as Prague and you also have to do three years doing an undergraduate study before doing medicine whereas with Prague, you just go straight into medicine.

@786-90
I'm not sure if I can do that, but if you revise from the CGP books, then you should be fine.

@Ryan
Sorry about misreading your last post. Well, if people want to go SGU, they can. I think both Prague and SGU are good. The thing is, Prague's closer to THE UK so I can book cheap flights going back home compared to going back home from SGU.

@786-90
I'm not sure if I can do that, but if you revise from the CGP books, then you should be fine.

Just pm me your name on fb and I'll add you.

I'm in first year of Charles Uni and despite the hard work, I am enjoying my time at Prague. As a city, Prague is amazing, but most of my friends don't like it that much because the workload and the rigorous weekly testing that the uni give is INTENSE compared to most unis in the UK, but I think of it as the more testing you get, the better you become and therefore, you'll become a great doctor in the end

I applied through CMUCAS and did the one-week training course at Malvern. It's expensive, but I think it's worth it as they give really good exam practice. The accomodation and food at the training course is bad, but like most things in life, you just got to go through with it

Hello, I'm a final year medical student at Charles University. Just thought I'd drop by and say that I'm free to answer any questions people may have. After reading this thread I feel as though there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Regards

Hi I 'm keeping Charles Uni in Prague as a great back up if i dont get any offers in the uk next year and I was wondering if any of the current UK students i Prague about:


1. The applications process- hard or easy :
AS grades
Chem A
Bio B
Maths C
HistoryC
1. I know not its great but im determined to reach my predicted grades in my A2 of As via resits and sheer hardwork.Would this be a disavantage fr me to study in Prague?
2. How hard is it learn Czech (latin too?)
3. Are there any interviews?
4.Do u guys enjoy it there?

Hello!

1) Charles University has five faculties of medicine with four faculties in Prague and one faculty in a city called Hradec Kralove (pronounced Hra-detz Kra-low-ve). Although all these faculties are part of Charles University they have their own admission policies and requirements. You should get in touch with the faculties you are interested in to find out exactly what grades etc. you need.

I applied for two faculties - the one in Hradec and one in Prague. The entrance exam and interview for Hradec Kralove was held in Imperial College in London. Luckily I got straight A's for my A levels and had good GCSE's as well, so they gave me an offer without an interview or an entrance exam.

I didn't really want to go to Hradec Kralove so I went to Prague to do the entrance exam and interview (I won't mention which faculty as I'd like to retain my anonymity online). The entrance exam is very very easy. Basic A level questions - no big mathematical or physics problems. I remember I managed to get my hands on a past paper while I was preparing and it gave me a good indication on what I needed to concentrate on. So you should try and do the same.

There was an interview as well - I think you pick two open ended questions to discuss. I remember one of my questions was about smoking and the social implications of smoking. These are opinion questions - they don't want to know about the finer details of bronchial carcinoma! So just speak about anything you like.

They added up points from the exam, interview and personal statement then posted a sheet of paper with our scores and who had gotten in at the end of the day. In my opinion it was a very very easy process.

2) Nothing is easy in Prague. You will have Czech tests every couple of weeks. The tests are quite easy sometimes and very hard other times. You'll have to study for weekly tests for many other subjects every week as well. Sometimes you'll have weeks where you have an exam every day of the week. This makes learning Czech really hard, especially when you need to concentrate on something like Anatomy which is much harder with a way bigger work load (learning all the upper and lower limb muscles including the origin, insertion, innervation, function and also memorising relevant cross sections and diagrams is a typical weeks worth of work for Anatomy in Prague). If you mess up you'll have to do the big credit tests at the end of each semester. Later in the clinical years the course gets much easier and you'll have more time to speak the language and practice if you wish. Compulsory Czech lessons end at the end of the third year.

Latin is also very hard, you'll have to learn about declensions and cases and be able to translate sentences from Latin into English and vice versa. Very hard. In some faculties you need to have passed Latin to be able to do Anatomy. My advice is to not underestimate any subject and work hard to pass your weekly exams in all subjects. Everything else will fall into place.

3) See 1

4) This is a really hard question for me to answer!! I've formed a love hate relationship with Prague. As you might have gathered it's very hard in Prague, however if I could go back in time and decide again whether to stay in the UK to study medicine or go to Prague, I'd pick Prague! The lifestyle, having friends from all over the world, being able to hop on a train and go to a different country in a few hours, being able to arrange your own attachments and go to anywhere in the world for a couple of months, being able to speak another language, the operas and theatres....the list is endless.

I hope I've helped. Good luck with your A levels and keep in mind that med school in Prague will make your A level exams seem like a walk in the park. Make sure that you think you'll be able to cut it here, because I know some great students have been kicked out from here and have returned to the UK to study medicine and are “laughing” at how easy it is compared to Prague.

Hi! I see you are a student in Prague. Can I ask what the situation is like financially and how you manage to afford tuition/ how much it costs.

How are fees usually paid?

Monetarily, Prague is still very cheap compared to the UK. My brother studied medicine in London and accrued around £16,000 debt. I have no student loans, live right in the center of Prague and I always go out, eat out and wine and dine my girlfriend. 16,000Kc - 18,000Kc a month on average is enough for rent and living costs for me. When I was in first year £100 was equal to 4,000Kc, but since the crash the pound has gone down and usually you get around 2,800Kc to 3,000Kc for every hundred pounds.

University fees are usually fixed. People in my year pay about 300,000 Kc a year. Some years pay less and some pay more. The fees in different faculties are not the same either.

I calculated before I came to Prague that I would pay way more to study in London than Prague. This is still true even though the pound has weakened in strength over the years. I can't stress what an amazing lifestyle I live in Prague compared to what I would have had in the UK.

Hi. Thanks for that. So how do you support yourself.... family or a bank loan or a job in Prague? or do you work in london during the holidays/vacatioon. I would be interested in knowing this.


Can you pay tuition fees in installments etc....