Written by Sarah Hohman, CSEEES 2nd-year M.A. student

When I began work on my master’s degree in August 2024, I had just returned from a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Moldova. As part of my coursework, I began studying Polish and immediately fell in love with the language, literature and culture. However, I never expected that summer 2025 would bring another opportunity for me to travel abroad and see the culture I had been studying in person. Nonetheless, with the help of a grant from the Polish Studies Initiative, a FLAS Fellowship, and the wonderful staff at CSEEES, I was able to spend six weeks in Kraków from early July to mid-August.

In Kraków, my main priority was improving my proficiency in Polish, as I hoped to be able to test out of second-year Polish and into third-year for the 2025-26 academic year. For the duration of my stay, I studied at the Prolog School of Polish, where I had classes from 9:30 am - 3:00 pm. Every teacher I met at Prolog was incredible and experienced at teaching the language. My fellow students came from all over the world and shared my same passion for the language. Thanks to these classes and evening cultural activities that Prolog organized, my Polish speaking ability greatly improved, and I’m now enrolled in third-year Polish courses online through the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

While language study was my primary focus during my summer abroad, I also hoped to gather information and insights that would be useful for my thesis. I’m currently studying Polish literature from the late 1800s and early 1900s, specifically concentrating on how authors dealt with shifting class structures in Poland during the later period of the partitions. During this time, Zakopane, a mountain resort town in the south of Poland, became a gathering place for the Polish intelligentsia, including many famous authors like Władysław Reymont who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924. These authors drew inspiration from both the local peasants and landscape and this influence can be seen in a number of their works. 

About a week before I left Poland, I was given the opportunity to see Zakopane for myself with a group of students from Prolog. We were told we would be taking a train into town and then going on a hike. Little did I know that “going on a hike” really meant summiting Kasprowy Wierch, a 2-kilometer-high peak on the border of Poland and Slovakia. The climb took around 7 hours round trip and was easily the most challenging hike of my life! I can't imagine trying to complete it in the early 20th century without the help of modern tourist infrastructure. However, the views from the top were well worth it!

Overall, the time I spent in Poland was amazing! I’m extremely grateful to everyone who helped make it happen. I can’t wait to go back someday!

Interested in learning more about the Polish Studies Initiative (PSI)? Visit the PSI webpage and be sure to sign up for our CSEEES the Day newsletter to find out when applications for 2026 PSI scholarships and grants will open.