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PITTSBURG —
Jitka Hamrsmidova can easily point out her Czech countrymen by their smiles. Or lack thereof.
“The people here in America are friendly and the people are always smiling,” she said. “When I go home, I can sit in the airport and pick out the Czech people. ‘That one has to be a Czech person, he’s always so grumpy.”
Hamrsmidova is the sole representative at Pittsburg State of her home country of the Czech Republic. About 40 foreign countries are represented at Pittsburg State.
Jitka said she came to Pitt State after a friend of hers used to work here.
“It also wasn’t expensive as the bigger schools, and I thought it would be easier to get a graduate assistantship in a small university, so I decided to try here,” she said
“I came to America because you can get a better paying job when you know English well and you can get a job in international business.”
Hamrsmidova graduated from Pittsburg State with an MBA, but works for the Business and Technology Institute. She also takes at least a class every semester. She works specifically for Mid-America Certified Development Company as a research associate.
But think of her as more of a financial analyst. She participates in loan packages, doing projections and other analyses.
“It’s nice to see how businesses start, develop and how they keep growing,” Hamrsmidova said. “People are so excited about their businesses. I just like to see the businesses grow.”
She said she is keeping her options open about whether to return to school and get a Ph.D.
That doesn’t mean the transition was easy for her.
English was a little bit of a problem. Jitka had taken 10 years of English through grade school, which included a lot of “I am, you are, he is, she is” repetition. She later spent five months in a Finland exchange program, where she learned English a little better.
None of that, however, quite prepared her for Pittsburg.
“I was shocked,” she said. “It was a big culture shock. I cried for a month. It’s a smaller city than I was used to, and there’s not really a transportation system. I think every international student goes through a little culture shock.”
Another interesting difference between Pittsburg and the Czech Republic is in the way education is handled.
In the Czech Republic, Jitka went to elementary school in the same town as the home of her parents, which is the town of Zdar Nad Sazavou. In the Czech school system, students choose their high school based upon the major they plan on studying. Jitka went to a bigger town, Brno, to study economics.
From there, she went on to college at the University of Pardubice (Pardubice, Czech Republic), where she stayed for six years.
She said the way a class works is entirely different in America — in fact, she said it is a little easier here.
“At home, we don’t have exams every three or four weeks,” Hamrsmidova said. “We just go through the classes. At the end, we take a month off when we take all our exams. The exams are all oral exams, so we have to set a time to sit with the teachers as they ask us questions. And of course, before you graduate, you have to take a graduation exam there. On the bachelor’s exam, you have an exam over all you’ve learned over three years.”
Besides the education system, the food is not too different. She said dumplings, sauerkraut and pork are big parts of a Czech meal. They also fry a lot of foods. Jitka described it as “very heavy.”
“There’s no fast food back home and people don’t eat out very much. You make more meals at home,” she said. “McDonald’s is a restaurant for the rich people in the Czech Republic. Not many people can afford to go there.”
Hamrsmidova said now that she’s been in America for 4 years or so, she’s starting to get more used to the area.
“If you’d asked me three years ago, I’d tell you all sorts of bad stories,” Hamrsmidova said. “But it’s getting better over time.”
Andrew Nash can be reached at andrew.nash@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 ext. 132.
Jitka Hamrsmidova can easily point out her Czech countrymen by their smiles. Or lack thereof.
“The people here in America are friendly and the people are always smiling,” she said. “When I go home, I can sit in the airport and pick out the Czech people. ‘That one has to be a Czech person, he’s always so grumpy.”
Hamrsmidova is the sole representative at Pittsburg State of her home country of the Czech Republic. About 40 foreign countries are represented at Pittsburg State.
Jitka said she came to Pitt State after a friend of hers used to work here.
“It also wasn’t expensive as the bigger schools, and I thought it would be easier to get a graduate assistantship in a small university, so I decided to try here,” she said
“I came to America because you can get a better paying job when you know English well and you can get a job in international business.”
Hamrsmidova graduated from Pittsburg State with an MBA, but works for the Business and Technology Institute. She also takes at least a class every semester. She works specifically for Mid-America Certified Development Company as a research associate.
But think of her as more of a financial analyst. She participates in loan packages, doing projections and other analyses.
“It’s nice to see how businesses start, develop and how they keep growing,” Hamrsmidova said. “People are so excited about their businesses. I just like to see the businesses grow.”
She said she is keeping her options open about whether to return to school and get a Ph.D.
That doesn’t mean the transition was easy for her.
English was a little bit of a problem. Jitka had taken 10 years of English through grade school, which included a lot of “I am, you are, he is, she is” repetition. She later spent five months in a Finland exchange program, where she learned English a little better.
None of that, however, quite prepared her for Pittsburg.
“I was shocked,” she said. “It was a big culture shock. I cried for a month. It’s a smaller city than I was used to, and there’s not really a transportation system. I think every international student goes through a little culture shock.”
Another interesting difference between Pittsburg and the Czech Republic is in the way education is handled.
In the Czech Republic, Jitka went to elementary school in the same town as the home of her parents, which is the town of Zdar Nad Sazavou. In the Czech school system, students choose their high school based upon the major they plan on studying. Jitka went to a bigger town, Brno, to study economics.
From there, she went on to college at the University of Pardubice (Pardubice, Czech Republic), where she stayed for six years.
She said the way a class works is entirely different in America — in fact, she said it is a little easier here.
“At home, we don’t have exams every three or four weeks,” Hamrsmidova said. “We just go through the classes. At the end, we take a month off when we take all our exams. The exams are all oral exams, so we have to set a time to sit with the teachers as they ask us questions. And of course, before you graduate, you have to take a graduation exam there. On the bachelor’s exam, you have an exam over all you’ve learned over three years.”
Besides the education system, the food is not too different. She said dumplings, sauerkraut and pork are big parts of a Czech meal. They also fry a lot of foods. Jitka described it as “very heavy.”
“There’s no fast food back home and people don’t eat out very much. You make more meals at home,” she said. “McDonald’s is a restaurant for the rich people in the Czech Republic. Not many people can afford to go there.”
Hamrsmidova said now that she’s been in America for 4 years or so, she’s starting to get more used to the area.
“If you’d asked me three years ago, I’d tell you all sorts of bad stories,” Hamrsmidova said. “But it’s getting better over time.”
Andrew Nash can be reached at andrew.nash@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 ext. 132.
