Helena Racicka is off to a good
start at Bradley University. “I come
from the Czech Republic which is located in Central Europe and I came to the
states to study masters in Business Administration, MBA at Bradley University
in Peoria Illinois and I choose to come to Bradley University because I got an
opportunity to have a graduate assistantship here which means having the
opportunity to study for a degree and work at the university and receive money
for living,” she says. "So that was a good deal."
Having already studied at an
American university before helped Helena with the transition process of
attending Bradley University. "The university is not too big, not to small. I would say it is a mid-size school. So before I spent a semester at the University of Texas in Austin which
is a huge school of 58-thousand students,” she says.
“So coming to Bradley was quite
different. The school is small so the
adjusting is actually easier because it is a small community here so it is
easier to know a lot of people and everyone knows everyone at least that is
what it seems to me,” she says. And I
just think the classes itself are okay because I studied at an American university
before so I pretty much knew what to expect and I didn’t have problems with the
language too much so it was okay.
Outside of studying, Helena enjoys working part-time in an international Business
institution.
“I work about twenty hours
a week and I work at an institution actually which belongs to Bradley
University. It is called International
Trade Center and it is an institution that helps American companies with their
export activities. So I work there as a
graduate assistant and I usually do market research or help with any other in-house
task, plus marketing research is what I do the most. Researching foreign countries where the respective companies
could export."
Helena says she has grown
personally since working on her degree. Some of the things she likes and has learned while here is.... "Well,
what I like is that things work. The
state is one of the most economically developed countries in the world so you
can tell that systems and processes here are well established, that you can
rely on services. You don’t have to
worry that other people will want to screw you up,” she says. “I like that people are honest
here, that people don’t cheat and the old atmosphere of trust,” she says.
That is what I like about the states.”
With more than a year left to finish her degree, Helena has already decided
what she wants to do once she is finished. “I will graduate in May 2009 and I am not completely sure what I s going
to happen after that. It pretty much
depends on my private life if I want to go back to Europe or if I want to stay
in the United States because I have a boyfriend over there in Europe.So if we are still together I might return
to Europe, if we are not I will want to stay in the states and find a job in
Chicago.”
Helena says the value of a degree from the United States will go a long way
back home.
“I think it would make me
more attractive to the perspective employers because people are aware of the
that an American education is very well developed and the fact that I spent two
years in the states would probably make me pretty well educated and that I
probably gained a lot of good skills studying at an American university, so
they would probably be interested in me more than in someone who does not have
such an experience, but of course there are other factors too.”
