Intern Abroad

• Philosophy, Literary and Linguistic Studies B.A.
• Czechia, Prague
• Manuscriptorium Digital Library of Written Cultural Heritage
• 06/2025-07/2025

Application

©Lea Decker

I heard about the internship opportunity at the Manuscriptorium (part of the National Library in Prague) from an online article I read. I applied online and after a short period of time they agreed to let me do the internship in Prague. I applied for the Erasmus internship support with the help of RWTH. After filling out the forms I received the confirmation shortly after. The whole process was easy and straightforward.

Accommodation

Finding accommodation in Prague is very difficult and the prices have risen over the years. The locals in Prague told me that finding a flat is even difficult for them. I got a small furnished room in a shared flat with five other people who were also mostly international students. My room was close to the city centre, and I paid 15900 Kč (~640€). For other students I recommend getting a room further away from the centre and looking through Facebook. The public transport in Prague is cheap and amazing, especially the trams and the metro. I paid around 20€ a month and could use every tram, metro, bus and train inside the centre and the surrounding area.

Everyday life in Prague and tips for other students

©Lea Decker

I really enjoyed living in Prague as it is a very beautiful and big city so there is always something to do. I tried learning some Czech, but it is very difficult and since I only spend two months in Prague and the language at my internship was English, I only learned a few words and sentences.

During the first weeks I often visited the famous tourists’ spots like the Prague castle or the Charles bridge. There are also a lot of beautiful churches that I visited, however in Prague you often must pay to go inside them. Since the city is so beautiful and has a lot of amazing architecture, I also often just walked through the city looking at the buildings. I also met some Czech students that I went climbing with or went to the cinema or the bar. I also visited a lot of exhibitions. In my time in Prague, I went to the Mucha and the Kafka Museum and saw a David Lynch exhibition as well as one focusing on women artists throughout the ages.  Surrounding Prague is also a lot of nice nature. I went to Divoká Šárka, which is a nature reserve with a big lake that was perfect for swimming.  There is a website called goout.net that I would recommend to all students going to Czechia, it shows concerts, museums, parties and many other events happening in Czechia, but it is also available for Slovakia and Poland.

I also went to some tea rooms that are very cozy and nice if you enjoy freshly brewed tea. In Prague there were also many bistros. Many of these are affordable (the price is calculated based on the weight of your meal) and offer vegan/vegetarian food. Because I am vegetarian I ate at these places a lot. Since Czech food is often made with meat, I could not try a lot of it but there is a meal called Smažený sýr which is fried cheese and fries and tastes nice. Many places also sell homemade lemonades that I can highly recommend, the one I liked the most is Malinovka, which is raspberry flavoured.

Work

©Lea Decker

I really enjoyed working at the National Library which is inside a beautiful building near the Charles bridge. It was my job to help catalogue medieval manuscripts with XML according to the TEI guidelines and prepare the files for publishing. For this I was first given a good introduction into XML and the cataloguing of medieval manuscripts. I would then start by doing a rough draft for each manuscript and then refining the files multiple times, adding more information about the manuscript and fixing mistakes. The people working at the library were very nice and helpful.

As well as the cataloguing I helped by popularizing the manuscripts by writing articles about them. I really liked the internship since I got to learn XML as well as the TEI-Guidelines which are often used in digital humanities projects. I also enjoyed that I got to learn about medieval manuscripts in the process, since I am very interested in history.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed my time in Prague and met a lot of amazing people. I was a bit nervous at first about going away, however it was a good time, and I would like to experience something like this again. The city is beautiful, and I appreciate that I got to do the internship and learn new skills.