Good morning freshmen, and welcome to Kraków 101 – An Introductory Course to Poland’s ancient royal city. Your textbook for this semester is the peerless Kraków In Your Pocket guidebook – the leading authority on what to see, do, eat and drink in Kraków for 17 years running.
The present edition has been thoroughly updated for the new academic year, and includes all the latest research and insights into a range of fields of study, including tourist relations, local linguistics (p.17), native art (p.84), gastronomy (p.46), coffee mechanics (p.56), pigeon husbandry, queue warfare, popenomics (p.78), vodkenetics (p.64) and more. Those of you that do the assigned reading will find everything you need to know about Kraków in these pages, plus a lot of things Kraków doesn’t even know about itself. We expect you to dedicate yourself to the coursework and do ample field research in your own time. Now, if you’ll turn to page 6 you’ll find a feature designed to quickly familiarise you with your new surroundings and the academic expectations of our institution. The core curriculum is outlined on page 71, and on page 20 you’ll find a list of electives you can sign up for beyond the prerequisite classes. The more you get involved, of course, the more you’ll get out of your time in Kraków.
In addition to the primary text, we also offer our students several online resources, including our exhaustive database krakow.inyourpocket.com, and the online scholastic journal blog.inyourpocket.com/poland. We encourage you to take advantage of these, and also keep up with course announcements via FB (/Krakowinyourpocket). By the way, do not forget to benefit from the collective experience of junior, senior students and alumni. They will surely be a reliable source of advice, counsel and interesting material to complement your coursework.
To all freshmen, upperclassmen and alumni alike, as you get to know Kraków better, connect with your fellow classmates, document your experiences and let us know what you find essentially Cracovian by using the hashtag #Krakow101. We’ll be collecting your entries for the yearbook at semester’s end, so do your homework, study hard and hope to see you all at commencement.
