ISEP-Exchange open to US students;
ISEP-Direct site open to member and affiliate students; chance of placement is excellent.
History: Masaryk University was established in Brno in 1919, only three months after the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic itself. It took its name from the country’s founder and first President, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, who as a professor at Charles University in Prague had long called for the establishment of a second Czech-language university. At its founding, Masaryk University comprised the Faculties of Law, Medicine, Arts and Science.
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During World War II, the Nazis suspended all educational activities of the university, and a wave of arrests resulted in the imprisonment and deaths of a number of students and professors. Even though the university reopened after the war, following the Communist takeover of the country in 1948, the authorities once more put an end to academic freedom, expelling hundreds of teachers and students and closing the Faculties of Law and Education.
The democratic revolution of 1989 allowed Masaryk University to return to academic freedom and to provide leadership in higher education. In 1990, the Faculty of Economics and Administration was established, followed in 1994 by the Faculty of Informatics, in 1997 by the School of Social Studies and in 2002 by the Faculty of Sports Studies.
Today Masaryk University comprises nine faculties with more than 150 departments, institutes and clinics covering a broad range of academic disciplines and fields of research. Over 37,000 students from the Czech Republic, the whole of Europe and the rest of the world – over 60 countries in all – study at the university. The recent introduction of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) helps foster the internationalization of curricula within a European context. The opening of three-year Bachelor’s and two-year Master’s degree programs of study has helped to further widen access for those wishing to study at the university.