Study / I'm thinking to study in the Wrocław University of Science and Technology [55]


Do you mean that it would be easier for you to obtain a job because you had a qualification from a European university? You're just as likely to get a job in the EU having qualified in Turkey. There are loads of software engineers from the Indian subcontinent getting jobs all over Europe and very few employers would have heard of the colleges they've attended or know anything about them.

Basically, whether you study in Turkey or an EU country, getting your first job will be the biggest challenge you face. As a new grad in Poland you would be competing against Polish nationals and it will be hard for you to get chosen over them. Going straight from a Polish university to seeking a job elsewhere in Europe won't be any easier. Most EU countries have a shortage of highly skilled, senior software engineers but they're not especially short of new, untried and untested graduates.

It's professional experience that counts most when jobhunting and most of the non-European software engineers working in Europe are not new grads. Once you've worked somewhere for a year or two, most employers don't care what university you went to unless it was one of the famous ones like Cambridge in the UK or Stanford in America. They only care about what you can do.

The best thing you can do is study for your degree in Turkey, work there for a year or possibly two and then start applying for jobs elsewhere. With two years experience under your belt you'll be a junior software engineer rather than a graduate softwear engineer and you'll have a better chance of finding work abroad.

Law / If I leave Poland and return to my home country, is it possible to claim back tax paid? [20]

Well I just took a look at the Polish government's website and the section about having ZUS contributions credited in another country for retirement purposes and as I expected it says that you can do so. Basically the way it works is that under EU law you can count time spent working in any EU country towards your pension. I'm afraid people in government offices the world over often don't know things and they either don't realise that they don't know, or they don't want to admit that they don't know so they just say 'no'.

The European Commission provides a free advice service which will give you details of your rights and entitlements regarding this. You can contact them at:

Freephone 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11

from anywhere in the EU
weekdays 09:00 - 18:00 CET
in any official EU language

or you can email them and they will answer you within three working days:

europa.eu/european-union/contact/write-to-us_en

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


Any person born of Polish parents and raised with an understanding of their language, history and culture whether in Poland or abroad is a real Pole and I don't think you can make such a sweeping statement about tens of millions of people and present it as a fact. What you mean to say is that in your opinion, you don't believe that a 'real Pole' would feel that way.


People are entitled to be individuals with their own belief system, opinions etc. and still be a real Pole. Nobody should have to think only one way or otherwise be denounced as a 'traitor'. Do you not see that that is basically a totalitarian philosophy? The concept that every citizen must buy into an ideology and follow it. And there you have the ghost of the PRL and how it still haunts Poland. The repressive ideals are still there but this time they are based around building a right wing Christian state.

Love / Are Polish people very family oriented? [17]

If he's not sure about his plans he should say so and the fact that he didn't constitutes misleading. Based on Candyloop's posts I would say she's a bit dewy eyed and romantic but not delusional. So I doubt that he said straight out at any point in the early stages that he was only there on a work visa. It would be interesting to know at what stage he actually shared that information with her. I do agree however that she took their friendship too seriously and made more of it than it actually was. A guy who hardly ever sees you and communicates largely by text is not your boyfriend and it's not a relationship. It's a flirtation, that's all.

Love / Are Polish people very family oriented? [17]

Yes, I agree up to a point. But look, he behaved in at least a secretive. if not deceitful manner, because when he first met her, the normal thing to do in the course of a first conversation when you're talking about how you come to be in America is to say, 'I've come over for a few months to help out in the family business' or 'It's my first time here, I'm just visiting family but I'm on a work visa so I'll be here for a while.' The fact is that he didn't want to reveal that to her. She made an assumption that he had emigrated to America and he let her go on that thinking that and he did so deliberately, because during the course of their friendship she must have asked certain questions or made observations that made it clear that she thought he was an 'immigrant' and he never corrected her on that assumption. So I would say that he misled her.

Love / Are Polish people very family oriented? [17]


Well he should have told you that to begin with but then of course he wanted to have a nice girlfriend in the background while he was in the USA. Very selfish behaviour. Not only that, Candyloop, remember what I said to you about how unusual it is for a Polish man of that age to be umarried unless he's the type who never will. What else has he been less than honest about? Is there a wee wifey waiting for him in Poland?


And dishonest. No matter how you sugar coat it he knew he was only in America short term and he never told you. He wasn't straight with you, in fact he misled you. Ok if he was a young guy under 25, it wouldn't be that surprising. But he's a mature man in his late thirties who behaved like a teenager. You should have more self respect than to be metaphorically standing on the quay side sobbing into your hanky and waving him off - in other words what are you doing seeing him before he goes?

Well anyway it's your decision. But take a lesson from it. When your gut tells you something is wrong next time, pay attention to it.

You sound like a lovely girl and I'm afraid lovely people tend to get hurt quite a bit in this world. Stay lovely but exercise your common sense in future. Wishing you the very best and hope you find happiness with a guy who deserves you.

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


One has to differentiate between public demand for such things, private organisations and government backed initiatives.

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


It's not the viewpoint, it's the quality of the journalism that counts. Publications like the Daily Mail are not quality pieces of research and writing. These are newspapers that feature headline stories about some reality tv star almost stepping in a puddle for God's sake.

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


Those were the two that sprang to mind immediately! Ironically their readers are precisely the types who loathed and detested the influx of Polish immigrants to the UK. Go back ten years and look at the anti-Polish sentiment expressed by readers of the tabloids about Poland and Poles.


Somewhat difficult to establish the identities of their descendants at this stage perhaps.

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


It didn't gain traction because they didn't persist with it and they didn't persist with it because it wasn't in their best interests to do so at that time - and nothing has changed. It's not in Poland's best interests now either.


Adrian, it doesn't matter what a few tabloids say or the often ill-informed opinions of those who read them. That is not going to influence the German government.

News / Polish-German Reconcilliation Seminar [491]


Not if they're forcibly exracted in a litigious manner.

The problem is that Poland missed the boat regarding reparations because the time to revisit this issue was when Poland became a free country once again with the fall of Communism. But the government at that time were more concerned with building a new democratic modern state than revisiting old woes. They were looking forward not backwards. That was also a time at which Germany had an opportunity to say 'do you want to discuss reparations, in view of the fact that the previous agreement was made under Communist control?' but Germany didn't do that and Poland didn't raise the issue either. Now, al,ost a generation later, trading with Germany, partnering with Germany in the EU etc it's a tad too late - it strikes a very discordant note.

As for the bison, well the actions of the present Polish government are threatening the habitat of that animal, though of course the various 'experts' on this forum will argue otherwise.

News / Poland - Ukraine. Młodzież Wszechpolska against Ukrainians. [180]

Well there's two Serbians who post here regularly. One is Crow who's basically as mad as a hatter. He's quite likeable though. He's the fourm's 'Eccentric in Residence'. Most of us have decided to find him charming :)) The other is Crnogorac who's a rather different kettle of fish. He's saner than Crow therefore not as easy to like! The best thing to do is take no notice of Crow but have a go at the other one by all means. Who was going on about uncorrupted communism, was that somebody else??

News / Poland - Ukraine. Młodzież Wszechpolska against Ukrainians. [180]


As far as I'm aware there have only been two world wars and America not only didn't start either of them, they were reluctant to get involved. America had to be dragged kicking and screaming into World War One and only saw action during the last six months of conflict. They didn't come into World War Two until December of 1941, more than two years after the start.

Study / I'm thinking to study in the Wrocław University of Science and Technology [55]


First of all you need to be clear about the difference between programming and computer science. Programming is merely a discipline within computer science and you can learn to program with minimal mathematical knowledge. However as times goes on you will need to be able to understand the maths that underpins the programming languages you use and you will need to be able to write your own algorithms.

You don't need to be especially good at maths to enrol on a computer science degree. Your high school maths will be enough to begin with. You will do the absolutely necessary basics of the more advanced stuff when you get to college and will do calculus in your first year. Depending on the college you go to you may be able to take a degree in software development as opposed to computer science, which would cut down a lot on the maths. At your stage it would be better to focus on learning a programming language really well than worrying about maths.

I suggest you join the stackoverflow.com forum for programmers. It's a great community for both amateur and professional developers and it's an invaluable source of advice and help for young programmers starting out as you have guys with years of programming experience who will advise you :)

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


Well firstly it's not quite true. It would be truer to say that a large number of the top universities are in the US.

To understand why America ranks so high you need to look at the criteria used to determine rankings. There are several, but a large part of America's reputation is down to their their post-grad programs rather than their undergraduate degrees. In certain disciplines the US excels, therefore it attracts the top post-graduate students in those fields from all over the world. For example Stanford is outstanding (excuse the pun!) in the field of computer science. Such universities also attract the best lecturers in those disciplines who continue to produce academic papers themselves. Then you have the fact that American universities have very strong links with industry and commerce and receive large funding through that which enables them to conduct research, and publication of research raises a university in the rankings.

Money is a big part of it you know. I mean, a highly respected lecturer in economics, possibly a published author, who's a Swiss national for example is not going to accept a very poorly paid job in Poland when he can have a very well paid job in the USA. The English language is also very important. Just as Latin was once the language of learned men of different nationalities who communicated through that, English is the language today. If our Swiss professor can't speak Polish, his vast knowledge is of no use to a Polish university so an American one gets the benefit of his expertise.


Well now Dirk, that's exactly what I would expect you to say but it's no excuse. You are literate in as much as you read and write fluently but a truly literate individual spells correctly as a matter of course (apart from the odd typo which can happen to anyone) and doesn't have to make any special effort to do so. Spelling mistakes in textbooks are a big deal. It's down to inadequate proof reading, maybe by somebody like yourself giving the text a quick once over :))


Oddly enough we have America, the land of supposedly plain speaking and 'we're all just folks' to thank for the worst examples of corporate speak and meaningless, pretentious twaddle. However on the whole outside of formal settings where certain rules have to be followed, I believe one should use whatever language one feels comfortable with. Obviously if you have a very wide vocabulary you need to temper it sometimes according to the company you're in as it's insensitive and rude to talk over people's heads and use obscure language that you know they won't understand. But on the other hand you shouldn't ever dumb yourself down excessively to fit in.


Oh I didn't think you were :)

Work / Poland - Expat Careers [26]


Woah! Steady on there old fruit, we're getting a bit carried away aren't we? I know you don't really learn history in American high schools but have you heard of the Roman empire etc? And if you knew the history of Britain you would know that their name is synonmous with the words 'the oldest' 'the first' 'the largest' 'the best' etc for hundreds of years. They really did lead the world for a very long time and the legacy remains in many areas. America only emerged as a world power in the last hundred years.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


Yes it's the same in Ireland too Chem. You apply to do certain subjects and you do only those from the first day of university.


American undergraduate degrees definitely seem to lack depth and some kind of post-grad study seems inevitable if you want to be truly knowledgeable in your subject. I came across a very interesting article by a history lecturer who's taught in American, British and Canadian universities and her opinion is as far as undergraduate degrees are concerned:

"Put simply, the level of expectation, in terms of critical thinking and analysis within any given discipline, is significantly lower at the most prestigious of the US institutions than at their UK counterparts".

Interestingly a Stanford chemical engineering graduate cites the breadth over depth thing as the reason why America universities are simultaneously better and worse :

"It is my opinion that this small but critical difference in higher education is the reasons why the US simultaneously has both the top Universities as well as produces so many useless graduates."

I would say that's a bit of an oversimplification though. There is no doubt that the sheer amount of money poured into the best American universities by industry and commerce and the funding of cutting edge research means that they attract some of the brightest and best post-grads from around the world so it's a kind of cycle of money funding research and research raising the profile and reputation of the university.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


It's not that early. In most of Europe you don't have to specialise until the last two years or so of secondary school by which time you've had ample opportunity to see where your interests and abiltities lie. Somebody knows at that stage whether they have a science or arts inclination. Also the European system allows you to pursue post-grad diplomas in a number of fields unrelated to your undergraduate degree so you can still change to a different profession if you make the wrong choice first time round.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]


It's not a question of bad high schools, it's a question of a deficient education system that treats its subject matter superficially and provides an extremely general education which does not prepare students adequately for degree level study. An American high school diploma is a certificate of general education with no in-depth assessment and exam in individual subjects, hence your own example of having to take additional classes after you've left high school to get your science subjects up to a level where you can apply to study medicine. In the British Isles and many European countries when you leave secondary school, if you have chosen to study science with an intention of taking a science based degree then you are ready to start that immediately. In the USA third level students basically spend the first two years of an undergraduate degree completing their general education and trying to figure out what they might be able to 'major' in for the remainder of the degree.


If a university offers a BSc in the subject then it's a branch of science. 'The Bachelor of Science in Forest Management and Ecology prepares students to manage our forest resources from a science-based perspective'.


That proves my point about the American education system. You, whatever your faults, are literate and reasonably articulate. You also attended excellent schools and yet, your level of English was such that you had to cram for an exam in grammar and vocab. That shouldn't be the case. Being intelligent, being fairly hardworking and attending the best schools on scholarships your knowledge of grammar should be excellent and you should be widely read with a vocabulary that demonstrates that.

USA, Canada / Polish or American Education? [180]

[moved from]


You mean those classes American students have to take before doing a decent degree, due to the deficiency of the American high school syllabus. A bit of basic chemistry, physics and biology does not make you a scientist and has nothing to do with the science of forest management and conservation.

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


I think that would be Maf's second category of Scots which I suppose is really a dialect of Old English and is spoken in Lowland Scotland.

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Well it works in that example but not in the other of liking or not liking sausages. I don't think you can really apply the rules of English grammar to Irish.

We don't really have auxilliary verbs in Irish, I mean there's no group of verbs defined as auxilliary. As a matter of fact the sausages example doesn't really contain an actual verb at all in the Irish sense because 'is maith liom' translates literally as 'it is good with me' so there's no verb 'to like' being used there. But sure never mind, we won't have an argument about it. Let it not sully the purity of our bond of friendship and good fellowship dear Lady :))


Yes I am indeed too young to remember him. However, I [i]do [i]know of Andy Stewart, the swish of his kilt and Donald Where's Your Troosers. I can give a rousing rendition of that one complete with a very passable accent! It's a shame we can't have a PF Christmas party isn't it, but I'm afraid relations being what they are between several members we'd all be slipping in blood on our way to the bar!

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


But that's in English, we don't have that construction in Irish. All I know is that if if somebody asks you:

An maith leat ispíní? Do you like sausages? you respond
'Is maith liom' I like, or 'Ní maith liom' I don't like but there is no way to shorten those to I do or I don't and leave out the word 'like'. Am I making sense?

As for 'Do you live in Poland' you can't say that in Irish, you have to say 'Are you living in Poland?' to which one would respond 'I am' or 'I'm not' Tá mé' or Níl mé' though you can in theory shorten those to just 'Tá' and 'Níl' to correspond to yes or no but it's considered not good Irish to do that.

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Is that in Welsh Roz? In Irish we would say "I like" or "I don't like" rather than I do or I don't. We respond with the verb.


Except for comedy, was it Love Thy Neighbour that had a black family living next door? Of course the whole point of it was their colour. Despite being a bit clumsy and cringeworthy it was trying to make a point though in showing the horror of the white man next door and the more accepting attitude of his wife though the point was really more that 'men are idiots, women are the brains of the operation' which was actually the premise of many sit-coms over the years. And there was a black guy in Porridge as far as I remember. It's interesting that brown faces and regional accents were largely confined to comedy and light entertainment.

Life / ID pictures - Krakow city card? [10]

Hi Ig. Yes there's a yellow box type thing with a red bit on it (usually there's one located just behind the driver's cab on the tram and there's more than one on the tram, not sure about the bus) and you just wave the card over it and you'll hear a beep. There's a small digital screen and you'll see a date come up on it that shows the expiry date for the validation. You can check how long you have left on the card any time by waving it over the red thing. Sorry I'm not very technically minded so I don't know all the correct terms but as long as the card works who cares!

Congratulations on managing to get your card under your own steam and on doing it po Polsku. It's terrifying isn't it, the first few times you have to do something in Polish but it gets easier. When I first came to Poland I always used to look up the key words I needed before I went to do something, either in a dictionary or a phrase book and I used to write them down and take the piece of paper with me in case I forgot them :)

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]

Well there was Moira Stuart reading the news and of course Trevor McDonald, not only brown of face but they both had accents though terribly 'refined' and well modulated examples. Melvyn Bragg is one of the few I can think of with a regional accent on the more serious side of programming. Magnus Magnusson is a very interesting example because he sounds slightly West Country or even Irish at times and of course he's Icelandic but grew up in Scotland. The Old English influence is there in his speech and I think his voice represents what a cultured gentleman of the 17th or 18th century might have sounded like before the RP thing.

Life / ID pictures - Krakow city card? [10]

You can get it in one of these offices:

kkm.krakow.pl/pl/informacje-podstawowe/wydawanie-karty

You need to bring a passport photo. Then you can top it up at a kiosk and you validate it when you get on the bus or tram. You just need to do that once and it's valid for the month, you don't need to validate it each time you travel.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]

The Mods moved that post to off-topic CO so here it is just in case Dirk missed it first time round (have to shorten you, it's too much of a mouthful but hey, you are the Commanding Officer in this scenario, I'll follow you through the forest to my certain death).



So here you are, with your great expertise, derived from working in sales, explaining science to a scientist.


You really have to stop this Adrian. You're going down the route you pursued during your first round of membership when you persisted in disputing the numbers who died in the Holocaust, denying the existence of gas chambers etc. frantically scrabbling round the internet, quoting reams and reams of stuff from various websites, trying to convince people that your personal opinion is fact. You're a salesman, not a scientist and you're not in a position to do more than comment on Białowieża in the same manner as any other ignorant townie and I include myself in that. I lived in the countryside, in a heavily forested area for several years but I'm no expert on trees or forest management and when it comes to conservation I read the opinions of those who are, of whom CO is one. If experts around the world are largely in agreement due to their scientific knowledge and the years of research and observation on which they draw, then I'm willing to accept their assessment of the situation.


Not if you have male pattern baldness it won't. Once an area of scalp is completely bald it's impossible to regrow. You must have at least a couple of hairs Homer Simpson style - so don't leave it too late Ada :)

UK, Ireland / Are you able to hear the different English accents? [97]


Nowadays, but fifty years ago? Apart from those holiday camp things built for the workers' holidays I don't think tourism was highly developed there. Although people also visited the mountains for walking, hiking etc. I would compare it more to the Aran Islands off Ireland's west coast where until quite recently it was pretty much a 'take us as you find us' vibe. However there is no doubt that the Communists encouraged a certain kind of 'folksy' cultural thing as part of overall Polish identity and they certainly trotted those fiddling groups around the countryside to give 'displays' of music and dancing. Today though, undoubtedly the Highlanders see the monetary value of maintaining their unique cultural identity.