ONLY PRETZLES LEFT HERE!

The University of Apllied Sciences in Oświęcim - a school where students have no access to basic facilities every higher education institution should provide for their students.

Over a year ago, when we put our first steps in this school, everything was fine. We didn’t worry if we forgot to print handouts for our classes because we could borrow them from our classmates and just go and have them copied quickly. Now it’s different because the school’s Xerox hasn’t opened yet and the nearest one is so far that it’s not possible for us to go there and come back within 15 minutes- that’s how long our breaks are. What is worse, some of the books that are available in our library can’t be checked out, they can only be copied at the school’s Xerox.

It sounds paradoxical, but it’s unfortunately true. The new academic year has brought us a lot of disappointment. Not only is there no Xerox point but also the school’s canteen doesn’t work. There are vending machines with snacks and drinks, which are often empty, but when you have your classes from 8 a.m to 6 p.m it would be nice just to eat a warm meal, wouldn’t it?. If you don’t like ‘7 days’ you can buy a pretzel from a lovely elderly lady, but you would have to hurry up because about 10 p.m the pretzels are often sold out. We also don’t have free access to wi-fi, which prevents us, for instance, from using essential tools such as online dictionaries, necessary especially at English or German classes. When we have to do something on our own, there are some teachers who share with us their private internet connection. But still, it’s really burdensome for the students as much as for the teachers.

We were wondering if the school authorities were going to do anything about that situation, so we started asking questions. What we’ve learned from the authorities of our university is that ‘Everything will be fixed in due time’. Later we found out that the contracts had already been signed up with both of new firms, now responsible for the canteen and Xerox. We’ve also learned that on 26th of October The State Accreditation Committee ate there the first lunch although it hadn’t been opened for us yet. To the best of our knowledge, the Xerox and the canteen will be available for us in the middle of November… hopefully.

But when it comes to a wi-fi connection, there is still no response. Our informants say that preparatory arrangements the opening of both the canteen and the Xerox point are in progress. The walls are being painted, the equipment is being installed. So we hope that in a short period of time we will be again able to enjoy eating delicious meals and copying our handouts. We hope that it will all end soon and everything will be just like it was in our first year of studying here.