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Tell me about Collegium Civitas (Warsaw)! [34]
I had a generally great experience at the school. Most of the professors are well versed in their field of study and there have been a number of improvements at the school in recent years. My M.A. advisor was particularly adept and I am particularly proud of the thesis that I wrote. Turns out that the foreign ambassador and highly respected professors who reviewed my thesis was so impressed by it that he gave me the first 5+ in his several decades of teaching at UW and other schools.
The faculty is supposedly better and friendlier than the faculty at any other school in Poland (there is no queuing from Monday just to get an appointment on Friday). I did see one issue, however, the faculty did admit several American students and Polish students that graduated from American high schools before returning to Poland and studying. Having an American high school diploma requires that you go through a pain-in-the-ass procedure known as nostrification. Attempting to deal with this in Poland is essentially an impossible task unless you have extreme determination to persuade state officials in the United States to bend the rules and provide you with a statement that says your diploma is recognized all throughout the United States and its possessions (legally, no state Board of Education can do this) since the BOE in Montana cannot tell the BOE in California to recognize its diplomas (it all comes down to whether or not your high school has accreditation from a reputable organization/agency.
Within the last two years, the school has upgraded its computer room, which used to populated by Windows 95 desktops (joking) to what I think are large, touchscreen computers. The library is small and its selection of English-language resources is particularly limited, but remember - this is a small school - it essentially encompasses two floors and has roughly a thousand or so students studying full time and on the weekends. But, the school has purchased access to a few online databases, so you should be able to have no issue finding plenty of scholarly articles. Professors will also leave copies or photocopies of books and other articles that are required for classes.
The curriculum could be improved, but generally, I felt it was fine given that the school is extremely small. My only major concern is that it seems Bogumiła Lisocka-Jaegermann recycles her syllabus every year and just changes the name of the class. I actually caught on to this and refused to take any additional courses by her based on this. I don't know if this actually changed or not, though. Several classes were demanding and I learned a great deal from the professors.
Ultimately, the worse part of the school was some of the other students. Many of them felt entitled to great grades despite not doing the work required and would argue with the professors. Others, would go out of their way to cheat on every single exam, much to my chagrin.
Now, I've found work after before and after graduating. Sometimes, the biggest issue is not the degree, but whether you have a karta pobytu or work permit (if you're not from the EU). But, Polish law helps out to some extent -- if you have a undergraduate or graduate degree from a Polish university, you no longer are required to have a work permit to work in Poland (but you still need to have a residency permit), which makes finding work for non-EU residents in Poland a lot easier.
Am I happy with Collegium Civitas? Ultimately, yes. It may have its downsides given that it has a small student body, but that means you can connect with some professors more. If you have the motivation to work, then, like at any college or university, its worth the money, especially considering that its relatively cheap (CC is less expensive for foreigners to attend than it is for them to attend the University of Warsaw).
