I'm from Poland and I've been to Warsaw many times. Hmmm, I'll see if I can dig up some stuff for you, and for my own curiosities sake. In the mean time if you have any other questions feel free to ask

i've been to warsaw on a backpacking trip.
i know nothing but that the people there seem mad and depressed. Maybe due to the weather. And being an asian-american I recieved a lot of evil stares and comments just strolling the streets. Felt awkward. I was standing at a bus stop and as the bus passed, I swear the whole bus was just staring at me motionless with wide eyes. haha

Don't worry, I think the "evil" stares were of more of curiosity than anything else. Most vacationers go to france or italy, very few want to visit poland. We just don't see many foreigners, well except from ukraine. People from the ukraine in poland are kinda like migrant workers from mexico that come to america. Big difference being that poland has about 20+% unemployment. Trust me, if you lived in those conditions you'd be mad and depressed too

I'm from Poland. It's one of my favorite places to visit, and I try to go there every year. However, I certainly would not suggest Warsaw. Its an ugly city (completely destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt under communism). If you are looking for grad school, I would certainly reccomend Krakow. There is a very nice university there... the URL of the english site is http://www.uj.edu.pl/index.en.html . Every time I go there I meet students from all over the world. Its a pretty popular place for foreign students to come to I guess. There is actually a lot of people from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia there (basically the english speaking countries). Not too many Asians, Indian, or Africans there though. Good luck.

Krakow was indeed a beautiful city. More sun and a beautiful castle around. I especially liked the huge square with the tower. A lot of cultural events to i believe. I remember they were showing a foreign film to the public at nights during the summer

Brian -
Don't go to Krakow. If you want to live in a beautiful city that wasn't destroyed in WWII go to Prague. If you want to experience a city that is slowly emerging from it's communist past, go to Warsaw. I lived there for 6 months and have visited and think that it is a great city. Sure it's not Paris or Berlin, but neither had the past that Warsaw has endured. Almost completely leveled by the Germans (old town – stare miasto) it was rebuilt identically an effort showing the Poles resiliency. They have much practice in developing a certain buoyancy, as their borders have been overrun numerous times. A very interesting city indeed, and well worth the stay. I was there in 1997 and had an awesome time, but things have already changed since then. I have heard that they have fell in line with the rest of Europe as regarding Americans as less than desirable tourists, and have an Ikea behind the Warsawa Centralna (the main train station). Regardless, I would suggest that it would still be an excellent learning experience and well worth your zlotys (the beer is top notch and cheap too!).

Does the university in Krakow have an architecture program? I think that my best chance getting an architecture related job would be with a university.
How's the language barrier? I'm willing to attempt to learn anything, however I'll need to be able to survive speaking English for at least a couple months. I'd also like to be able to socialize with the locals over a few beers.

You can survive on english in a bigger city but good luck if you wonder into the country. A lot of people in poland try to learn english so they can leave and find better jobs elsewhere, so you should be okay. Be aware that polish is really difficult to learn, especially when it comes to writing.

Although, I have never studied architecture in poland, from my understanding, architecture is more of a engineering field than a design field. Well, that may be changing now as more young talented people go to learn abroad and some decide to come back and share ideas.

We didn't really get the bauhaus effect in poland. Recall that nazis didn't look to kindly on the bauhaus, forcing Gropius, Mies & others to flee to the US. After WW2 Poland was sealed off from the western world by the iron curtain and that was that. I'd like to suggest you look at Warsaw. It has a pretty good mix of building styles. There is some really old stuff, a bunch of communism stuff and some nice modern stuff. Warsaw having one of the better skylines in europe as a whole. It should be a pretty great experience if you go. Because of its semi-centralized loacation, it would be easy for you to travel around europe as well. You could even venture into the east (russia, ukraine etc.), see lots of amazing stuff thats not usually covered in western text books.

interesting posts....id like to revive this thread b/c ill be going there soon...can anyone recommend some cool stuff to see. ill also be going to prague, vienna, budapest and a short stop in bratislava so any recommendations for those cities would also be appreciated. thanks