Student in Olomouc

Discussion in 'Introductions' started by Cocotte, Sep 9, 2007.

  1. Cocotte

    Cocotte New Member

    Hi ! I'm a french girl, I'll move to Olomouc in the middle of September, so very soon... I don't speak Czech, but would like to learn (in one year it should be possible)...
    Then if you're living there or if you were already there to study or to work... maybe you can tell me your feeling about the city and give me some advise (simple things like a good cinema...).
    Then good bye everybody. Cocotte.
     
  2. Matej_CZ

    Matej_CZ Member

    Hi "Cocotte", last year I studied in Olomouc, next year I will change the school. Everything I will write here is just my opinion or things I discovered, some people could have different impression.

    Olomouc is quite nice looking city with 100 000 inhabitants, the 5th biggest in the Czech Republic. For it's size, however, the cultural life here is extremely poor. If you mentioned cinemas, there are only two, one quite good in the city centre (Kino Metropol - www.olomouckakina.cz) and one multiplex very distant from the centre and with very bad bus connection - only one bus in 30 minutes (Cinestar Olomouc - www.cinestar.cz). I was there twice and it seems no one is going to this cinema. Both cinemas have titles from normal distribution, there isn't any "club" cinema (altrough Metropol sometimes tries to do a club projection, twice a month or so). Also last year the Pastichefilms student club worked on the university and held projections in the third floor of Konvikt building (Faculty of Theathre, Film and Media Studies/Faculty of Arts) in projection classroom, you have to buy a clubcard, they show selected filyms from narmal distribution, usually few years old. If you like films, probably you saw all of them long time ago. In the same floor of the same building there is a video library with quite rich archive (they say around 10 000 titles, including feature films [usually recorded from tv], recorded theathre acts, short films, tv magazines, everything on VHS and DVD [DVD versions are mostly VHS copied on DVD, quality isn't the best]). If you study on the faculty, you can borrow the VHS/DVD for 5 days, other students only 1 day. There are 4 video rooms where you can play the film, the capacity of one room is 2 people, up to 4 can stuff there. Borrowing is for free, the room must be reserved (also free). During the summer there is summer cinema in very nice landscape, but this have no value for someone who is not there during the summer.

    The theathre. There are two regular theathres and a Music Theathre. The Music Theathre (Divadlo hudby Olomouc - www.divadlohudby.cz) is in the Konvikt building (the same as Pastichefilms and video library), in the courtyard. Also there is a theathre club on the university, but it seems it won't work in the future because the interest is very low. I know a girl from the production so I can ask. This club uses another room in the third floor of Konvikt building (yes, again). Regular theathres are the big city theathre (Moravské divadlo Olomouc - www.moravskedivadlo.cz) and small amateur Divadlo Tramtárie (www.divadlotramtarie.cz), running by mostly university students and situated near Billa supermarket.

    The music. Don't expect known groups/projects to play in Olomouc and generally don't expect much. There is a jazz café, a few disco bars. The biggest music club is S-klub (sometimes refered as AMC Club) (www.sklub.cz - the last programme is from may), usually punk/metal events, also drum-n-bass or psytrance parties. The capacity is much bigger than the interest. Another club is S-klub (www.sklub.cz), smaller with student discos in wednesdays and few times a month with something other, usually folk/country and ethno. The last music club is the 15minut club (www.15minut.net). The name means 15 minutes and 15 minutes is also a time needed by regular visitor to get seriously drunk. It is very alcohol-based club, the music there (mostly various-styles DJ production, sometimes less known Czech bands, not as bad selection) is just background for drinking (but this is just my experience, my roommate once vandalised the lights in the club while drunk). You can notice on every night here is one alcohol drink for special price and this is the reason why most people visit this club. The last space for music is Envelopa hall with irregular events, 0 - 2 every month, usually parties with Czech drum-n-bass or house/techno DJs. Moravia (the part of the Czech Republic where Olomouc is located) has a problem that there weren't any electronic dance music programmes in radios during the 90s, so almost all people on parties there are disco-kids with greasy hair, lollypops and generally lower intelligence.

    The expositions. Unlike film/theathre/music, Olomouc has quite enough of galleries. I won't name all of them but if you like this kind of art, you have some selection, altrought not often changed. In the third floor of Konvikt, art students show their works, it's not big but it's for free.

    The culture of Olomouc: pubs. If you came from some bigger French city, you will be disappointed by the people in Olomouc. The University of Olomouc has long tradition, but the quality of the school is not so high and the students there are usually not intellectuals. If you expect fresh young opinions from student's heads, you won't find any. If you know student marches from France, Olomouc students don't care about politics, about how the school is managed, they never protest simply because they don't care about anything but pubs. This is unfortunatelly true. If you want to talk about something with someone there, the topics will be the favorite brand of alcohol or favorite cigarettes, maybe football. If this is what you want, you will like Olomouc. There is pub on every corner and pubs substitute social life in the city. People there don't need culture, they don't need to have an opinion on something, they can live just from beer.

    Sport in Olomouc. There is a football stadium, the local team has the name Sigma Olomouc. There are ways for bicycle riders, Olomouc is on flat land so you won't get exhausted by travelling by bicycle. There is one covered swimming pool and gyms for students. Paid sport courses are available for university students. Other courts for tennis etc. are also there, in no big quantity.

    And something about the city itself. Olomouc historic city centre is the second biggest in the Czech Republic, altrought absolutelly cannot be compared with Prague (in size [the whole centre is not bigger than Prague castle alone] and interestingness). There are many beautiful parks in the city which substitutes lack of forests and uninteresting land around Olomouc as Haná region is based on agriculture and forests were cutted off to allow planting on fields. Olomouc is truly student city, the economy is based on the university (student accomodation, pubs) and almost everything there is done for students. When I talked about cultural life, all music clubs are in proximity of university buildings or student dormitories. During examination periods (january to the beginning of february, during summer), everything stops, clubs are closed. The majority of students of the university is not from Olomouc and they go to home for the weekend. As the result, Olomouc is dead city during the weekdays. The real Olomouc inhabitants are even more passive than students from abroad (altrough most of them are from Moravia), they don't need culture at all. People of Haná region were tradicionally rich from agriculture, they lived from their farms and they were happy from food. Even today, they like to eat and drink well (the quality of Olomouc restaurants is higher and prices much better than in Prague), while they don't need cultural life too much. Another thing connected to being farmers in the past - Olomouc people, I don't want to offend somebody, are looking a bit degenerated. There is definitely much higher share of blonde people (German types) than in the rest of the Czech Republic and if you look good, it will be big advantage for you, because the Olomouc girls are way less attractive in average than girls of Prague for example (but really way way way less). The good thing about Olomouc - the city is very safe at any time, drunk students are noisy and rude in the night, but there aren't any dangerous districts or so.

    I wish you good year in the Czech Republic and if you will have time (on the weekends for example), visit Brno (not as historic, but good atmosphere and quite rich cultural life about 1 - 1,5 hour from Olomouc, the fairgrounds there are the biggest in the country) and especially Prague. I cannot be objective because I'm living in Prague and I was born there but Prague is great beautiful city with a lot to discover (tourists usually see only small part of the city), rich cultural life full of film/theathre/music/anything festivals, music events like concerts and parties with world quality bands and acts and open minded people who are thinking about what happens around them (of course not all are like this, Prague suffers from known problems of big cities, but the student-type people are much more "interesting"). For me, it was big disappointment to stay in Olomouc and especially on the beginning I suffered a lot, but I hope you will have better experiences than me. Can I ask you why did you choose Olomouc for studying in the Czech Republic?

    Have a nice day!
     
  3. Ájík

    Ájík Well-Known Member

    Hey, as I told a few times in this board- the Olomouc is my most favorite ... 8) 8)

    Watch this, this, this, this and this.

    Very good tavern is Varna- the map. And as I like confectioneries- here is a good one!

    The cinemas are here.

    Welcome on this board!
     
  4. Jana

    Jana Well-Known Member

    Hey, Matej_CZ, can I ask why YOU chose Olomouc for your studies?
     
  5. Matej_CZ

    Matej_CZ Member

    Hello Jana, from your other posts (and the name) I know you're Czech, but I will write the answer in English, because I think it could be handy for someone outside the Czech Republic.

    Unlike the majority of well-developed countries (especially anglo-saxon), in the Czech Republic student can't freely choose what and where he/she want to study. Here we have entrance exams (which often lacks any logic, for example SCIO tests favored by many mostly Moravian universities have nothing common with the selected subject and thus no real value) on most subjects. Depending on the school and subject, the ratio of applicants/accepted is various. If you want to study for example Mechanical Engineering, you have 98 - 100% chance to be accepted anywhere, technical universities accept students well above their capacities. On the other hand, if you want to study subjects more attractive for the majority of people, you must have great luck to be succesful. And here is the point: Olomouc is a city totally dependent on it's university, I would quess without the university Olomouc economy would face total bankruption. As a result, Olomouc University has MUCH better applicant/accepted ratio than other Czech non-technical universities, especially in the case of Faculty of Philosophy. Here are the examples: Journalism (Prague 20:1, Olomouc 7:1), Political Studies (Prague 8:1, Olomouc 2,5:1), Film Studies (Prague 25:1, Brno 10:1, Olomouc 3:1), Archivation (Prague 3:1, Olomouc 1,5:1). Those ratios came from 2004, 2005 results and are rough. Yes, I wasn't succesful in Prague and I had to study in Olomouc. I think this is the case of the majority of Olomouc students who live outside the city. Olomouc has the reputation of being pub-life city, it attracts pub lovers and the structure of Olomouc students is: 1) people who live in Olomouc or close to the city, 2) loosers - people who weren't succesful in more attractive city (Prague, Brno, Plzeň...) - like me, 3) alcohol & party lovers from anywhere. As a result, the behaviour of average Olomouc student is on the manual high school level (učiliště), not on gymnasium level as I would expect from university students. And when you can't sleep because the whole night groups of drunk and noisy students are returning from pubs, sometimes with the need of talking with already sleeping ones, when you sit in the classroom and almost everyone around you smell from cigarettes, when the only topic you can talk with the others is alcohol you drink and cigarettes you smoke, than it's time to leave Olomouc.
     
  6. Petr_B

    Petr_B Well-Known Member

    False. If you are not lazy to walk for a bit, it's about 10-minute-walk from a tram stop (and just a few trams stops from city centre) and trams definitely run MUCH more often than half an hour (during day it should be every 6 minutes in the Neredin direction). By the way there used to be more movie theaters, but they closed down because of the lack of interest. Not really surprising when you think about overall quality of movies screened AND the introduction of "home theaters", and another factors.

    This is so silly I'm almost left speechless. Do you think radio stations in Bohemia and Moravia are so different or that Czech Republic doesn't have whole-country radio stations or what? Have you been even living in Moravia in 1990s? Besides, since when are people who listen to electronic dance music are better than those who listen to disco music? (Just for the record, I don't listen to either.)

    Mmm, so you think Brno, Prague or let's say Ceske Budejovice students are different from Olomouc ones? Well, I guess if you compare Czech students to the infamous French radicals who burn and vandalize anything in their reach when anything isn't exactly to their likes, I'm sure ours appear to be calm and lacking zealotry. But you must have been really unfortunate about your friends / acquaintances, I can't remember hearing even one conversation about cigarette brand. I'm generous enough to pass on obligatory "Birds of a feather ... " Unfortunately, I also believe it's true Czech students drink too much, but as I can't compare it to how it is in other countries, I might be wrong. Once again I doubt that students in your beloved Prague are any different in general.

    There are several more soccer teams, for example Holice which plays in second highest soccer league. Of course, there are also handball, voleyball, basketball and other teams engaging in highest-levels national competitions.

    I don't have any hard numbers going for or against this but I doubt it's like that. University (just like e.g. hospital) provides employment for many people, students are might spent a lot in pubs, but there's still many jobs in industry (for example engineering) or agriculture, even if it's not visible to an outsider.

    Well, you're just a kid so I'll let that pass. But I can't help myself not to wonder about relation between "looking degenerated" and "being blonde (German type".

    Poor boy. Now I understand your grudges. Must have been hard for you being away from your Mom for a whole year. (joking) You forgot to write which Faculty you attended - Faculty of Arts?

    Disclaimer: being born and lived in Olomouc for my whole life, I might be biased.
     
  7. Jana

    Jana Well-Known Member

    And where the heck did you get this from?
     
  8. Sigma

    Sigma Well-Known Member

    I went to one theatre near the Olomouc mesto train station, and it was by far my favourite. Too bad only 10 people were at each film.... :(
     
  9. The Animal

    The Animal Well-Known Member

    vítám vás Cocotte :D :D

    Ájík, you have some cool links 8) 8)
     
  10. Cocotte

    Cocotte New Member

    Děkuju Animal ! :D
     
  11. dzurisova

    dzurisova Well-Known Member

    I don't know how I missed this post from September, but I must commend Matej_CZ for being brave enough to share his/her feelings. But I also understand how it could have offended some readers. Matej_CZ, you must have expected a negative response from some readers.

    I, as an objective American, can just enjoy the debate. It's quite interesting and I commend everyone for remaining civil.
     
  12. pismomalir

    pismomalir Member

    Obviously a troll; Brno more attractive than Olomouc...? Bahahahahahahahahahaha

    Cocotte try to see a game of Ice Hockey while you're there. The Olomouc team is going quite well so far this season and even if you don't usually like sport, it's a real part of local life, and you won't have to put up with any pseudo-intellectual poseur Praguers like Matej...[/quote]
     
  13. Petr_B

    Petr_B Well-Known Member

    If you want to know how credible Matej is, I recommend checking his previous posts, e.g. in this thread, just reading the first post might be enough. It's hard to believe he's actually a university student (as he claims to be), some of his statements sound like from a slightly retarded 10-year-old. E.g.:
     
  14. pismomalir

    pismomalir Member

    Wow! He really needs to find a girlfriend doesn't he?
     

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