Focus on Slovakia

  Slovakia

Durations of Program: 3-6 months and 7-12 months

Description: Live with a host family and study for a year or semester in a gymnasium (public high school). The school year runs from September to June, with Christmas, Easter, and semester breaks. Your studies will include Slovak language, history, and culture, and physical education, plus three electives. After school and on weekends, you will have opportunities to participate in your town's amateur sports clubs and attend cultural events and local festivals.

AFS volunteers organize activities and orientations, including an Easter get-together. There may also be optional excursions at an additional expense, such as ski trips, St. Claus evenings in December, and the International Festival of Ghosts and Monsters at the Castle Bojnice.

Highlights: Did you know that Slovakia is younger than you are? It is one of the two territories that, from 1918 to 1992, made up Czechoslovakia. Slovakia's independence dates from 1993, three years after the collapse of the Communist regime that controlled Czechoslovakia since 1948.

The Slovak countryside is beautiful, with farmlands, dense forests, and mountains. Slovakia is divided into 16 regions, each with its own distinctive cuisine, costumes, art, and folk dances. As in its former partner territory, the Czech Republic, music occupies an important place in cultural life. Musical development has been traced to Roman times, and it was nurtured by the Roman Catholic Church and by the Magyar (Hungarian) nobility. Also, just about every town has an amateur sports club, and every village has at least one soccer club. AFS Slovakia hosts more than 24 students from 10 countries each year.

Application Process Involves:

• In-Person Interview Required
• Written Application

Post Services Include:

• Exit DebriefingAbroad
• Re-Entry Debriefing at Home
• Alumni Network
• Job and Internship Network

AFS Intercultural Programs's Mission Statement: AFS Intercultural Programs is an international, voluntary, non-governmental, non-profit organization that provides intercultural learning opportunities to help people develop the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to create a more just and peaceful world. AFS Intercultural Programs is a leader in intercultural learning and offers international exchange programs in over 50 countries around the world through independent, not-for-profit AFS organizations, each with a network of volunteers, a professionally staffed office, and headed up by a volunteer board.

Year Founded: 1947