It began at the end of December 2009 when a CERGE-EI student came back to Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine – his hometown and mine – to give a presentation about CERGE-EI. I was intrigued by the opportunities that CERGE-EI was offering. I wanted to get an MA degree in economics from a foreign school, and then maybe a PhD. At my home university, Zaporizhzhya National Technical University, I would be receiving only a Specialist degree in International Economic Relations.
It’s amazing to realize all the changes that I went through over the last six years at CERGE-EI. Orange color is no longer dominant in my wardrobe, even though I still have the short orange skirt I was wearing in the preparatory semester of summer 2005. But this series is not about such changes. Its main purpose is to share the practical information about life at CERGE-EI and in Prague that I have accumulated over these years.