Study / Tell me about Collegium Civitas (Warsaw)! [34]

delphiandomine, you seem bitter.

At any rate, you're wrong on most of your assumptions. Some are ridiculous so I will ignore those.

I doubt someone who spells recognize with a "s" would know what was required of American students. When my diploma was being nostrified, I was explicitly told by the office on Jerzolomiskie that it needed to be recognized throughout the States. You are correct (in this instance) that I neglect to mention the part where the statement must also permit you to go on to post-secondary studies.

I don't believe it is right to classify CC's library as poor. It's a smart business decision. Foreigners pay a fraction of the tuition that they would at UW and can use BUW resources by only purchasing a library card for a few zloty. Plus, anyone can also use books at the PISM library for free. So, I believe that it's a great decision not to duplicate resources that students can get cheaply elsewhere. Moreover, I received instruction from some UW and College of Europe - Natolin's best professors without dropping 5,000 EUR on tuition.

The cheating thing is universal. It is probably worse at public schools here and it's also present within the teaching staff at public institutions. My girlfriend recently purchssed three books by professor from UW only to learn that he plagarizes 80% of his own work in each of the books. So the fact that UW ranks somewhere in the top 500 holds no water for me, especially if you are referring to the Shanghai Rankings which have been criticized for the methodology employed.

My assessment still stands. For a school that is only 13 years old, has a small student body, and has done well enough by having students move on to even better schools (IU - Bloomington, for example), it is a good option.

Law / I got a job in Poland, but there's no work permission [3]

If you have a degree from a Polish university, then you don't need work permission -- you only need residency permission.

Po polsku / Jaka szkola jest Collegium Civitas? [5]

I also went ahead and replied here: polishforums.com/work-study-43/tell-collegium-civitas-warsaw-6167 4/

Study / 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).

Law / Non-EU country citizen on tourist visa - could anyone help me with Karta Pobytu? [63]

Karta pobytu technicality

Precisely 45 days before the expiration of my karta pobytu, I reapplied for a new one. I submitted everything, but the woman accepting the documents took issue with my photographs. As it was already in the evening and most photography stores were closed, she told me to simply come back in a week. I did so and gave the person working that day the new photographs (there wasn't much of a difference in the photos except that they slighly zoomed in on my face). He then proceeded to hand me a paper dated seven days after I orignally submitted my application. My karta pobytu expires very, very soon. Does anyone know if I can still receive a visa extension even though the official dated the paper a week after I originally submitted it?