Hello everyone, my name is Mit Gohel, and I am a rising senior at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in Economics with minors in Statistics and Computer Science. I am from Hatfield, right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I will be traveling to Prague, Czechia, for the first half of the program and then Krakow, Poland, for the second half. I am interested in how the economic systems shape people’s daily lives, whether that be countries that have already developed or have just gone through major economic transformations.

I chose to travel to Central Europe because of my interest in its transition from communist systems to market economies, wanting to see the economic theory applied in real life. My interests lie specifically in the European Union integration, tourism, currency differences, and trade. Specifically, comparing the U.S. economic system with Central European systems. One thing I wanted to see in real life was how historical events still influence modern policy and development.

Going into this experience, I was curious about many things in Central Europe. Starting off with Czechia and Poland, both of which are part of the European Union, one thing I noticed is that they still have not integrated the Euro as their sole currency. Rather, they have been using their original currency Czech Koruna and the Polish Złoty, respectively, and I hope to learn why they do that. An expectation going into this program was the obvious infrastructure differences and how they have kept the old theme infrastructure and brought it into the modern world. One question I had was how the older people in Central Europe view capitalism compared to the younger generation, and I hope to find out as I go through the program.

Personally, I hope to gain independence for myself by traveling to another country without family for the first time and being able to build confidence in a foreign environment. Intellectually, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of comparative economics outside of textbooks and apply it to real-world situations. Professionally, I hope to gain a broader global perspective that is useful for finance and markets. While also meeting local students and learning about the professional world here, and seeing similarities and differences between Central Europe and the U.S.