Exploring the world with VSE: a throwback to 2024

Internationalization counts as one of VSE’s long-standing strengths and belongs to our major priorities. The number of students going abroad continues to grow, in 2024 the number of students with international experience has again surpassed the numbers of the previous year. .

Overall, 1094 students chose to spend a semester abroad at one of our nearly 250 prestigious partner universities, and 121 more decided to do an internship abroad. By and large, 1215 international mobilities were carried out.

Who spends semester abroad the most often?

All VSE students are welcome to study or intern abroad. In 2024, 560 undergraduates, 643 masters and 12 PhD students made use of this opportunity.

Concerning both internships and exchanges, the most active travellers are students of the Faculty of International Relations and students of the Faculty of Business Administration, followed by students from Faculty of Finance and Accounting the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics by a smaller margin.

What are the top destinations our students choose?

In total, VSE students set off to 60 countries in 5 continents with Germany being the number one country of choice followed by, among others, France, the USA and Spain. Thanks to a rich network of partner institutions, VSE allows students to choose from a wide range of overseas destinations as well – for example Canada, Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil and Singapore.

From the academic year 2023, a new opportunity for international experience opens up for students in the form of a short-term intensive course organized by one of the partner schools. In these cases, the intensive course abroad is always preceded by a short virtual activity. Last year, 18 students from FIR participated in this kind of program in the Netherlands and Bulgaria, 4 students from FIS gained this experience in Slovenia.

For Internships, the largest number of VSE students went to Germany and the USA. Spain was the third most popular destination. Last year, however, interns also travelled to more exotic and distant parts of the world, such as the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Morocco, Tanzania  and Vietnam.

Kateřina Matušíková (FIR, CzechTrade Lima)

My internship in CzechTrade office in Lima was a great experience. Peru is a very beautiful country, where everyone finds their own thing and for sure it is not only about Machu Picchu. The director of the office Martin Rossbach immediately knows your strengths and weaknesses and according to that you get your tasks. There is a great group of people that make your stay more pleasant. When it comes to work, you get to see how it works and meet a lot of interesting people and are part of great projects. You will gain experience that will be useful in future.

Tereza Berecová (FIR, OECD Paris)

I was working in communication team for the OECD’s Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social affairs, which gave me the possibility to learn how OECD manages their external communication with the world though digital platforms. Apart from the promotion of OECD’s publications and findings on social media, I also took part in preparation of a conference for member countries’ ministers of health, which was such an amazing opportunity!

Tereza Sloupová (FIR, CzechTrade London)

I had the unique opportunity to be part of the operations at the CzechTrade UK and Ireland office based in London.  My task was to support the local team of experts across various domains, providing me with insights into the diverse activities of this institution.  I assisted in creating registries of potential business partners for Czech exporters and also participated in reaching out to UK companies whose profiles matched our clients’ needs.  I wrote interesting news from the industry ️ for both the Czech and British CzechTrade websites and even had the opportunity to participate in the Czech-British Business Forum or the Design Industry Fair.

This internship provided me with a practical understanding of international trade and negotiation, which I consider a valuable complement to my studies.

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Top universities in terms of number of outgoing VSE students

International Mobilities are not concerning only students

The experience from the international environment is also very valuable for academic and non-academic staff of VSE. In 2024, VSE employees travelled to 51 countries through 705 business trips, mainly to Europe, but also to the USA, Singapore and Chile.

As part of the Erasmus program, VSE sent 94 employees abroad in 2024 – for training or as visiting teachers at partner schools. Since last year, academics can also receive support for teaching mobilities to non-European countries (or countries outside the Erasmus+ programme). In the first year of the project’s operation, a total of 12 academics took advantage of this opportunity, travelling to the USA, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland or Hong Kong.

Back in Prague, the programme of visiting professors has also been very successful. VSE students got the opportunity to study in English and to choose from 48 additional courses in the Spring semester and 22 courses in the Fall semester.

Get inspired!

Experiences, photographs and videos of outgoing students and staff are being continuously shared on our Instagram account vse_studyabroad and Facebook account VSE Study Abroad. We carry on with student takeovers series in order to allow the outgoing students to share their adventures with many tips and tricks for prospective exchange students. All takeovers are saved in International Office Instagram Profile so that it inspires more students to (ex)change their life. That is why both IG and FB VSE Study Abroad profiles are worth following!