Studies In Poland, is it easy to survive on part-time jobs?

Thanks for filling me in. I was wondering why all the questions from prospective students have recently been devoid of any mention of academics, and been almost entirely about jobs. It's been a dog's age since I saw a serious question from a real student on this forum.

The universities and recruiting scammers must be raking it in, ripping off these kids of their parent's life savings. It's disgusting.

Maybe not raking it in, but it's clear that these fees are helping the public universities considerably, especially as the individual faculties usually get to keep the fees from foreign students. For private "universities", it's pretty much the only thing keeping them afloat in some cases.

Either way, I'm totally against it.

Thousands of overseas students work now, especially in catering and gastronomy.


Studying in Poland is an increasingly popular option.

I was planning to pursue my MBBS from Poland. As I've read all these comments here...I think I wouldn't be able to survive, as I would have a huge loan on my head and I thought of doing part time jobs to earn my daily life expenses.

Can anyone plz suggest the best Country to do so...with part time job opportunities for students...

@Mmaannvviieee

Any of the English-speaking countries would be the logical choice, particularly the one you wish to settle in.

In other words menial jobs with virtually non-existent benefits and wages typically well below a living wage thus leaving them to commute long distances to work at expenses they can barely afford.

So today you will be cheering their presence and tomorrow you will protesting against their employment conditions.

Hi,
My boyfriend is planning to go to Poland for his final year. We are Sri Lankans. I would like to know whether its easy for him to find a part time job there to survive? He speaks only English. Will it be an issue to work there? Does it take a long time to find a job? And please let me know the amount he can earn per hour?

I would appreciate if you could advice me on these questions. Thank you

It depends where he's going. In Warsaw it's a lot easier to find a job without speaking Polish than in smaller cities. In smaller towns it would be close to impossible. As for wages, even in Warsaw he's going to be lucky to take home much more than ten zloty an hour.

@DavSL1992

Poland is a country with high youth unemployment, and even Polish students have difficulty finding jobs. If your boyfriend needs to have a job to finance his studies or stay, then Poland is not a country that he should be considering, Make your decision based on the fact that he will never get a job or be able to earn a single penny during his stay in Poland.

@Harry

Thank you for the details. Yes he is planning to go to Warsaw. I saw lot of comments which says, it is not a good idea to go to Poland for studies. But is there a possibility for him to do about 2 part time jobs if he can manage. Also how many hours can he work per month?

@DavSL1992

The chances of him finding any work in Poland at all are less than getting eaten by a shark, getting struck by lightning or winning the Powerball lottery. Even Polish students have great difficultly finding work, and they speak the language.

Again, if he cannot pay for 100% of his study and stay without earning money in Poland, then he would be supremely stupid to come to Poland to study in the first place. There are no jobs for foreign students in Poland who do not speak the local language very well, and it will take him sever years just to learn the basics.

It is incredibly foolish to make your plans on the very remote possibility that your husband might find a job. Assume that he can't and won't, and make your plans based on that assumption.

@DominicB

Thank you for the info :) I will let him know and if so we will look for another option

Hey. I was planning for Going to Warsaw for my MBA and iam worried about the chance of getting a part time job as it is a English speaking country. And also what is a minimum living cost for a student in warsaw.

Poland is not an English-speaking country, and most Poles do not speak English. The language there is Polish, which is not at all similar to English, and very difficult for foreigners to learn. Don't expect to speak even basic Polish for several years. Chances are very high that you will not learn more than a few common everyday expressions.

An MBA from a English-language course in Poland is unlikely to be respected much on the job market, both in Poland and elsewhere. English-language courses at Polish universities are mostly a joke, with very few exceptions.

It is just about impossible for foreign students to find part-time work in Poland. Youth employment is very high, and even Polish students have difficulty finding work. Make your plans on the very safe assumption that you will never be able to earn a single penny during your studies and stay in Poland. If you are unable to finance your studies 100% without working, then Poland is not the country for you, nor are any of the other countries in eastern and central Europe where youth employment is very high (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Italy, Spain and Portugal). Anyone who says it is easy for foreigners to find jobs in these countries is lying.

Budget at least 1500 PLN a month for a frugal student life, plus all travel, visa and permit costs. So about 2000 PLN in all. That's if you are lucky enough to get student housing. Otherwise, it will cost substantially more, up to 3500 PLN a month, or more, depending on the lifestyle you are used to.

If you can't afford to study at a good school in a richer country, you best option is to study at a top school in your own country.

Amen, dominic:-)

@DominicB

What about English mba from szkola glowna handlowa? The weird thing is though that its like a joint venture thing with university of Montreal in canada. The degree you actually get upon graduating isn't from sgh though but rather from university of montreal even though the classes are held at sgh. Would university of Montreal be considered more prestigious in poland than say some other middle of the road mba at another polish school? I do know sgh is usually recognized as the best b school in poland. Would it be better to receive an mba from sgh as opposed to say a good American or Canadian school that's well recognized like say duke university northwestern ucla etc?

But are the instructors native English speakers, this is the question:-)

Well when I read about it on sgh website it sounded like the teachers were from both canada and poland.

I wouldn't mind going to sgh but id imagine a degree from sgh would be worth more in poland than from univ of Montreal. I could be wrong though. In the us and canada and probably much of the rest of Europe university of Montreal would be more recognized.

Unfortunately though sgh doesn't have aacsb accreditation and I haven't check Montreal's yet

Usually in Poland, people say that they graduated from the institution that provided the instruction, so in this case, they've got an MBA from SGH, not Montreal.

It's not the case everywhere, but many of these courses provide double diplomas - one from the home uni, the other from the foreign uni.

These joint programs are worth less than an MBA earned on campus in Montreal. There are a few graduate degrees in English at SGH that are worth something, but they are for mature students with prior managerial experience and a specific interest in Poland and the region.

Many, if not most, of the Economic Universities in Poland have similar joint programs. Wrocław offers a similar program in conjunction with some university in Ireland (Limerick, I think). It says a lot about the programs at these schools that they are not able to market these programs without adding some "cachet" derived from the name of a foreign university.

And yes, an MBA from Duke, Northwestern or UCLA is worth a lot more on the job market than one from an English program at SGH, or one from the University of Montreal, for that matter. The reputation of the school counts for a lot.

SGH is hugely respected in Poland.

@jon357

For their courses taught in Polish, certainly, especially within Poland. As well as for some, not all, of the programs taught in English, predominantly the highly selective degrees for mature, experienced managers with a specific interest in Poland and the region. A lower level MBA taught in English is not worth very much, though.

MBAs even from the best schools have decreased in value as there is now a global glut of MBAs, with a concurrent drop in ROI.

@jon357

Thanks Jon. Their program is hugely respected in pl that I know but unfortunately they only have 2 types of mbas. One in polish where you get a degree from sgh upon completion and the other an English one but despite having classes at the sgh campus the degree you receive upon completion is from univ of Montreal. If the degree was from sgh I would totally go there. However i don't think id do too well in a polish classroom setting as i simply have never studied polish business or legal language.

@DominicB
Id only partially agree with that. There's tons and tons of mbas especially online ones now that are regionally accredited and usually far cheaper than aacsb schools like the ivy leagues, duke, ucla, new york u, etc. However even an mba from a Jesuit univ like marquette Creighton loyola etc which also hold aacsb still has a great roi. For example the average starting salary for a loyola grad is around 110 120k, 140k at the more business focused Jesuit unis, while northwestern is only a tad higher at 160 170k. The difference is though northwestern costs almost 200k to attend. A guy or gal in his late 20s or early 30s w a bachelors can expect their salary to go up 50% to 100% plus upon finishing an aacsb mba.

Many publications say that for the money mba is still by far the best paying masters degree on average and is even very close to a medical degree which tends to cost far more and takes longer.

Even the top b schools in Europe like insead London Erasmus etc can expect to easily make over 100k with the highest average salaries being in Switzerland at 140k.

I've heard that in poland one can easily make 70k use plus upon finishing a renowned mba. This would seem pretty realistic as salaries for people like sales managers at oracle make 250k zloty annually.

For sgh when I researched salaries they lead the pack of 30 diff polish unis at an average of 11k zl a month. The top 3 were all Warsaw schools. However I don't know if this was average starting salary or what or even if this was average salary after a bachelors or mba. Im assuming bachelors as the mean was around 7k 8k zloty which seems right for a bachelors from a good business school working at some corporate job. For example Google in poland pays their sales reps 2k usd a month plus commission which would be roughly 7.5k zl salary plus commission

@DominicB

I believe the school in wroclaw the economic one does its program with a uni in either lwow or Minsk.

The problem is that many educated poles know you can simply purchase an mba in Ukraine and probably Belarus too for around 3k usd.

While there might be a glut of good MBA grads worldwide there definitely is a shortage of them in Poland - it is very hard to recruit MBAs who speak Polish and have some practical skill.

11k as a starting average salary from SGH sounds way to high - I would have thought something like 5k. What jobs in Warsaw pay that much at entry level apart from the odd IT thing (and thus not aimed at SGH) ?

@cms

Nope 11 almost 12k zl according to the below but median says 8k

m.newsweek.pl/biznes/30-uczelni-po-ktorych-zarobisz-najwiecej-ranking-,artykuly,368039,1.html

Good to know about that. I am hoping that my skills experience and education set me apart when I make the final move to poland. I don't expect to make the same salary as us. If I could even make the same as I do now with just a bachelors here thatd be plenty for me.

Perhaps not entry level but like i wrote earlier - Google pays 2k usd plus commission and their requirements were bachelors, fluent English and polish with 3rd language a plus, and at least 3 years b2b experience. Another position was available in Gdansk that paid 30k euro plus commission also b2b type work and the requirements were nearly identical to Google. Also those were b2b sales rep jobs, not sales manager/director. From what I've seen some of the salaries for sales managers are great in poland - from 14k a month for t mobile which was one of the lowers ones to 250k a year for oracle. There was one sales manager job that paid like 280k a year but I forgot the name. It was a us tech company though.

Typically sales, it, finance and management pays a bit more though than other corp jobs like pr, marketing, hr, accounting, customer service, logistics, operations, etc.

My dream is to finish my degree, become proficient in Spanish and russian, move back to poland and raise a family there. I'm hoping in 2 3 years ill have enough saved up and have enough skills and experience to land a good job

Hello sir my name Ankit Patel I'm from Gujarat, India n m planing MBA in jozefow ,but I'm how to search part time job in this city and salary etc. I don't know so please guidance me.

Thank you

job in Jozefow? ufff...maybe try mushroom picking in nearby woods,or collect empty bottles by the river

It's easily commutable into the city centre.