Students enjoying unique European summer with CzechMates program

Editor's Note: This is the seventh in a series about Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications students completing summer internships.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For many Penn Staters, Happy Valley is a second home. This summer, thanks to a unique study abroad program, some Bellisario College students are finding a third home in Brno, Czech Republic.

CzechMates offers a summer-long, immersive experience that mixes the cultural highlights of international travel with professional opportunities in global business settings. Among students from several universities, four from the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications are a part of this summer’s cohort.

The students say Brno (population 380,000) isn’t a common location to study abroad — and that’s how they like it. Located 130 miles southeast of Prague, they stay in the city’s downtown on the campus of Masaryk University with students from colleges around the world.

“Brno and the surrounding areas have their own special character,” said Zachary Segalewitz, a senior telecommunications major. “Obviously everyone should visit Florence and London, and that’s great, but I think it’s a mistake to overlook Brno and this program.”

The other students from the Bellisario College are senior telecommunications major Andrew Richardson, junior broadcast journalism major Anjelica Rubin, and senior advertising and public relations major Brynn Smith.

With convenient travel options, students visit many of the classic tourist stops of Europe, including Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Vienna, and other cities. But program creator and Masaryk University professor Michael Elavsky says Brno quickly becomes a home base for these young travelers.

“You can see it in their eyes [when they return from a trip]. ‘It’s nice to be home,’ they say,” Elavsky said. “Brno is big enough to get lost in, but at the same time welcoming and youthful.”

Segalewitz said he expected challenges living in a new county, but “it never got super overwhelming” thanks to the group dynamic and the organizers and mentors helping the students along the way.

“It’s very eye-opening to learn the history and see how things have developed,” he said. “And it's just so beautiful here, everywhere you go, I love that.”

Several things make CzechMates unique. When they arrive, students begin their experience by taking a course on globalization and the media. The class is taught by Elavsky, who prepares students for their time in central Europe culturally, professionally and socially.

“It’s a globalization course, so we discuss a lot of different things,” Rubin said. “Politics, ideology, culture, music, and we do that for three weeks.”

After they complete the coursework, students can be paired with an internship. They work in an area related to their major for the remainder of the summer and get a chance to expand their skillset in a truly international business setting.

Elavsky uses his local connections to set the students up with positions that interest them. He also meets with each student weekly while they complete the internship. Rubin is working two internships, one as a news intern for Czech Television (Watch her first broadcast here.) and another working as a social media and digital content intern for the expat agency Foreigners.cz.

"The internship aspect of this program has been an incredible opportunity for me to get out of my comfort zone and work in a professional environment unlike anything I have ever experienced,” Rubin said. “I am so thankful to Michael, the CzechMates program, and the wonderful summer school coordinators at MUNI [Masaryk University] for their guidance as I made the transition from being a student studying abroad to an intern as well."

Rubin added that the meetings with Elavsky and her internships are “where you get the mentorship that I don't think a lot of study abroad experiences get. It’s a structured experience, but we’re also very independent with what we get to do with our time.”

Segalewitz, who is interested in smart phone and app design, is interning with Kyndryl, an American company in Czech Republic that designs and builds technology systems. Just over a week into the program, he is working in the company’s inventory management department.

“It is safe to say that I ended up in a very good position for me and I am really enjoying myself,” Segalewitz said. “I am getting smart phones prepared to be shipped…and I am part of a larger team that does many other IT activities. I’ve been told that there will be other projects in the future that I will get to be involved with.”

Elavsky taught at Penn State from 2005 to 2017. He started the CzechMates program as an embedded class within the Bellisario College and said the goal of the program is to build students’ confidence and expand their appreciation for international travel.

“I tell them that now is the time to really dive into this city, get to know people and be curious,” Elavsky said. “I really try to get the students to feel empowered, so when they get home, they feel like they can take on the world.”

Details about the program may be found online at www.czechmates.org. Questions about the program may be directed to Mary Sergeant (mym7@psu.edu), lead adviser in the Bellisario College, or to the CzechMates program at info@czechmates.org.