Completely Inaccurate Expectations of Everything (CIEE)

The title speaks for itself and is actually an inside joke between myself and the other participants who have had a terrible experience with CIEE Teach Abroad Prague.

I am currently finishing the program and am just trying to make the best out of the last few months I have here since the first 6 were horrible.

Due to not receiving the required paperwork for my employee card application in decent time (we got the documents in July, we had to leave in August) the entire experience was ruined from the start. I spent the first 4 months here on a tourist visa technically volunteering and struggling to get paid compensation from CIEE. Oh, I also spent a day in jail with two other participants after CIEE advised us to "register" with the foreign police when our 3-month tourist visas expired and we were here illegally. We weren't "registered," we were arrested. And CIEE did not tell us what was going on while getting arrested.... I found out the whole truth of the situation after I was processed and given a professional translator who told me I was arrested and processed for being there illegally.

The list of mistakes the CIEE Teach Abroad Prague staff has made is too long for me to even write. It includes: ignoring emails for days about important things like contacting your landlord for a broken shower or being locked out of your apartment, NOT helping a participant find a doctor that speaks English for a required prescription, and NOT answering the phone when a CIEE intern doesn't show up at the meeting spot to help you get to your visa appointment.

These are all things that the CIEE Staff has taken lightly and has, weirdly, turned around on the participants. They tell us we are just "bonding through anger" and should be more independent since we're teaching abroad and college graduates. There's 7 of us in this program and we're literally their afterthoughts. They just started including us in the regular emails about CIEE events in Prague THIS month in February. They once pity invited us to their Study Abroad students' goodbye dinner AFTER the RSVP date on the invitation.

I spent most of my experience here hating CIEE for not sticking to what they said they'd do. I also haven't mentioned that I studied abroad with them in Prague in 2014 and the experience was nothing like this. We received endless support, almost babied. I truly have no idea what happened to the staff in those two years. Are they really trying their best, or do they just hate the Teach Abroad participants? I don't know.