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Jelena Kljaković Gašpić

Welcome to Orlando!!  

Heelloooo FOI! This is Florida calling! Sending applications-> finishing work on the topic "Information Fluency and Cultural Diversity" -> getting visa-> insurance-> packing. Yes, I am ready for Florida, my second trip across the ocean and first for the U.S.A. Flight London-Orlando had lasted 9 hours. Good team, video and audio channels in the plain and nine hours had passed in a moment.

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In Orlando, we were welcomed by Michael, Laura and Lili. We were situated in the Rosen Campus, one of the many student campuses in Florida. Laura and Lili are members of the McNair Scholars Program and Michael is managing director.

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McNair Scholars Program is an educational center that prepares students for further education. FOI and the McNair Program for last two years are closely cooperating thanks to UCF's vice dean Alison Morrison-Shetler.

Excellence in Undergraduate Research

After the first impressions, it is time to start to work. But before we have started working here are some expressions. Everything is big and wide, really everything. Every road has a minimum of 6 lanes, three in each direction. Of course, the cars are great. Still I have not seen a small city car. Everyones are driving sedans and jeeps. Here it is almost impossible to live without a car and of course everybody has a car, even students and retirees.

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On Saturday, early in the morning we headed for the Jacksonville, the second largest city in the United States. There was held a conference titled Excellence in Undergraduate Research. This symposium was organized by the University of North Florida. Students with undergraduate studies have the opportunity to present their researches to students and professors. They also have the opportunity to connect up with other universities and find a new university to continue their studies. For the presentations they didn’t used Power Point, they used posters.

On our way back to Orlando we visited the city of St. Augustine, one of the oldest cities in the United States.

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Universal Studio

I think the title says everything. The whole day we spent at Universal Studio, one of the main attractions in Florida. I think that there is no drive to which we didn’t go, and to some even twice. In a few moments we all went back to our childhood and identified with our heroes and super heroes like Spiderman, Harry Potter, Hulk, Cat in the Hat, etc. Special day, full of adrenaline and joyful emotions. Pictures will tell you more than I can describe with words.

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Community work

Universal Studio had definitely left a strong impression on us, but it is time to start working. On Monday we have started with a slight warming up for the week. The first presentations were held by Alen, Matija, Katarina, Lili and Laura. Alen and Lili gave us insight into Croatian and American educational system and Katarina and Laura presented the Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI) and University of Central Florida (UCF). Differences in educational systems are mostly present in higher education, particularly in applying for university. UCF is currently the second largest university in the USA and has about 56 000 students, for comparison University of Zagreb has about 54 000 students.

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After the presentations, we went sightseeing through campus. At one site are located all faculties and research centers. Campus is really large that there is even the transportation within the campus. Currently there are not so many students in UCF because of the spring break. The most interesting for us was Student Union’s building, which is bigger than the FOI’s building.

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The afternoon we spent at the arboretum, which is located in the campus. Community service work is very important in American society and awareness about it is really high. When student are applying for university, community work is one of the conditions (200 hours).

 

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Conference Days

Tuesday and Wednesday have been characterized by our presentations. We presented papers and research that we worked for about two months. One of the goals of this conference and collaboration McNair School Program and the FOI is to encourage researches among students.

Ivor Šebalj - How project based on student exchange can affect student perception

 

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 Alen Delić – Research on College students Perceptions Across Different Countries

 

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 Katarina Pažur – The Reflection of Cultural Diversities on the Information Fluency and Communication in Higher Education

 

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 Myself – Web 3.0 and Problems in Cultural Diverse Environment

 

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 An excellent introduction to Ozano’s and Matijas's presentation was made by FOI’s vice dean dr. Diana Šimić, who joined via Skype to conference and gave a presentation on International and Regional Policies for e-Democracy and e-Perception.

Ozano Rokov – New Information and Communication Technologies and Human Rights

 

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 Matija Kapić – Influence of ICTs on our Freedom

 

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UCF Campus 

Throughout these few days we had the opportunity to thoroughly learn about the university, campus and some of its departments.

If you've ever thought about studying in the U.S. then I suggest UCF University. All information about the study can be obtained from the International Service Office. Studying in the U.S. for our standard is quite expensive. Annual costs, including tuition and living expenses are about $ 30,000. Amount is, as I said, very big, but there are various forms of scholarship.

Team from International Service Office

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One of the most interesting colleges for FOI students at UCF in Florida is certainly Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA). This is a graduate program that educates students to work in video games sector. Annually, they enrolled 60 students in three directions: programming, production and design. Through two years, students work on several projects. After graduation they are employed by the companies such as Cartoon Network, Universal Studio, BBC, etc.

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 It is also important to emphasize that we were welcomed by the UCF vice president Rick Schell. He introduced us to the history of the university and its mission and vision.

 

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Madame Ambassador

Harriet L. Elam-Thomas is the current director of the UCF diplomacy programs. 65-years old lady had spent 37 years working as a U.S. ambassador in the world. She was the cultural attaché in Turkey, Greece and Senegal. Lunch with her ​​left a strong impression on us. In this short time we discussed about U.S. and Croatian educational system, some political issues, the perception of Americans in the world and human relations.

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Currently she is director of diplomacy programs and professor. She said she doesn’t like to perform classical exams. Through practical tasks and examples she tries to provide the experience needed to work in diplomacy.

Information Fluency Conference 

From Wednesday to Friday at the UCF was held the conference under the title Information Fluency. Information Fluency is a relatively new concept, and includes skills related to IT and computer literacy and critical thinking. The aim of this discipline is to emphasize the problems of computer literacy and information and to find solutions for the academic level. In this conference was discussed what skills are needed for students to find and process relevant information in the 21st century.

Professor Vidaček-Hainš in cooperation with Michael Jeffries and Renata Horvatek have exhibited their work on the theme "Enhancing Information Fluency in Students Through Study Abroad and Transcultural Communication".

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NASA

 Have you ever wondered what exactly does the NASA acronym means and what exactly are they doing? NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration is a U.S. government organization whose vision is to explore and discover something unknown, which will serve to human society. Over more than 50 years NASA tries to discover what's in the space, how can we go there, what's on the Earth and what can make our lives better? NASA was established on the initiative of president Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 as a response to Soviet space exploration.

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Today, NASA has four main departments: aeronautics, exploration, research department and operations in space.

Friendship

Can we ask for more?? :-)

 

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