Katarina Pažur

First day at UCF

Hello everyone,

I would just like to give you a brief impressions regarding the first few days spent on the student exchange at the University of Central Florida in Orlando :)

Second day after arrival, Saturday, began very early. We woke up at 5:30 and went to the Student Research Symposium in Jacksonville at the University of North Florida. It is interesting that in America, students are since undergraduate study encouraged in their research work and this symposium is just one of many activities which aim is to give students opportunity to present their research papers.

Monday was reserved for exploring the UCF campus, as well as presentations about the educational system in Croatia and the United States, presentation about Faculty of Organization and Informatics and the city of Varazdin. It is interesting that, in only one day, we met two UCF employees who speak Croatian :) One of them was a librarian Lila Miletic-Vejzovic who gave us a short overview of the UCF library and database access.

Community Service Project

After the official part of presentations, Monday afternoon was continued in a different character. As volunteering is very popular in America, we have joined the Community Service Project and give a contribution in the UCF Arboretum. You can see in the picture how successful it was! :)

Campus Tour

On Monday we started with a tour of the campus again. Please note 'start' because in an hour we could see only a small part of campus.

I believe that every student in Croatia can’t imagine what the term 'campus' means, until he experience it - parks, fountains, wellness center, modern buildings, bookstores, etc. Although it is a spring break and currently there are only plenty of students at the campus, what we have seen is more than impressive. I would especially like to point out the relationship between students and professors that we have experienced during a meeting with professors, and may be described with two words - pleasant and friendly, and usually begins with: "Hey, how are you ?

All in all, we unanimously concluded - who would not like to study in such an environment! Or perhaps - who could even concentrate on studying :)

The following picture was taken in front of the building of 'Student Union', which is intended only to students and their associations..just for comparison, a space that students have for their activities is bigger than the size of our faculty ;)

To be continued..

Tuesday

Tuesday was definitely a day with the most activities so far - from 8 o'clock in the morning when we left the dorm to the returning around midnight.

In the morning program we have listened 4 presentations. Presentation were opened by vice-dean at the Faculty of Ogranization and Informatics prof. Diana Simic and our college Bogdan via Skype videoconference. After that, Ozano and Matija have presented their researches on the topic "Human Rights and ICT".

During the lunch we have talked with Lili’s mom who gave us her collection her poetry, and the staff from the Office for International Cooperation. For those who are possibly interested in studying at UCF it was organized a workshop about the application procedure at this University. The procedure itself is not that complicated, and the most important items in the selection procedure are academic grades, letters of recommendation, essay, volunteering activities, research papers and other additional activities. Price of the study - approximately $ 34 000 annually! But the price may fall significantly due to the numerous scholarship opportunities for financing student.

In the afternoon we have visited the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) Tour, which is the UCF Academy for the development of computer games. The program in the Academy lasts for 16 months during which approximately 60 students, as they are received in a single 'cohort', works in teams to develop computer games. Although it is Spring Break, however, we have met several developers closed in a darkened room without a window in which they spends most of their days, and nights. According to their words, it is not a rare situation that they stay in the Academy until 4 hours in the night.

More information will follow as soon as I find the time..it starts a new day which will, according to the schedule, again be full of interesting presentations and meetings!

Greetings from Orlando!

Meeting with the ambassador

 Today, the last four members of our team, Ivor, Alen, Jelena and ja, have present their research work. All topics that we have presented were associated with the following terms: cultural diversity, information fluency, multicultural students, etc., which is closely related to the theme of the conference "Information R / evolution" that is currently being held at the UCF-in. I would like to thank everyone who joined us via live stream :)

What I particularly like are meetings during the lunch at which each day one of UCF's employees join us, and conversations usually lapse into a very pleasant tone. Today that was the Ambassador Harriet L. Elam-Thomas who has simply delighted us with her kindness and simplicity, as well as with the interesting stories from her rich life experience.

Besides the ambassador, we have met Vice President and Chief of Staff Dr. Rick Schell, who has, in half an hour, said little about the University of Central Florida and their linkages with the private sector. I must admit that I was a bit shocked by the amounts mentioned when talking about the University funding, which moves in the billions of dollars.

Information Fluency Conference

The primary goal of our trip to the University of Central Florida was, except for the presentation of our own research work, attending the conference Information Fluency 2011. At the conference was presented a poster by the authors prof. Violeta Vidaček-Hainš, Renata Horvatek and Michael Aldarondo-Jeffries, director of the McNair program at UCF-in and the coordinator of our visit to this University. This poster was about a bilateral cooperation between the Faculty of Organisation and Informatics and the University of Central Florida, and the impact this type of activity on the information fluency of students who participate in this exchange program. Thanks to Professor Vidaček-Hainš, the conference was very productive because she established  some new contacts for the expansion of this cooperation!

Despite there are only few students on the campus during the spring break, we had a chance to meet a group of students who are members of the so-called "Honors College". They have shown us the faculty building, which is (according to them) one of the most beautiful on campus and they have also introduced us with the regime of study. Members of the Honors College are the students of different profiles that has shown success in their academic grades and extra-curricular activities and therefore have the honor to pass through a special study program within small groups of students and with many other privileges.

Trip to Miami

Like every conference, this also has it's cultural part :) Since we have seen a lot in Orlando during the past week, and we visited the northern part of Florida during a student research symposium in Jacksonville-in, our hosts decided to take us to Miami. So we spent Friday relaxing in the beautiful city in south Florida. In this case, it is worth saying that a picture speaks a thousand words, so I will express my impressions through several photos!

During our stay in Miami Lili and Candice held an interesting presentation on fraternities and sororities, which are very popular iat American universities. I believe that everyone is familiar with these organizations from the movies, but hearing the stories from first hand gives totally different picture. We have learned that for membership in fraternities and sororities candidates need to pass strict selection criteria, and once they enter they stay connected with their fraternity or sorority for the whole life. For all of the members is a great honor to be part of such a community, and we have also heard that membership in fraternities and sororities as an item in the CV may have an important role in employment.

Before the departure to Miami we have made a tour of the rest of the UCF campus. I just have to mention that this time the "Campus Tour" was done in car because that was the only way to see the rest of this beautiful campus in such a short time.

NASA Cape Canaveral Tour

Saturday started early again, getting up at 6.30 am and departing to the Kenedy Space Center. Fortunately, the morning was nice and it was not hard to get up :)

Visit to NASA center was an unforgettable experience during which we had the opportunity to experience a very realistic simulation of launching into space and the stay in space through a 3D projection, to hear the real stories in a meeting with the astronauts, etc.

And at the end of this day I can not address the fact that it's almost the end of our stay in Florida and tomorrow we are flying back to Croatia. But the departure does not mean the end of cooperation and friendship with our friends from UCF's. Indeed, I'm already looking forward to new meetings! The experience we gained during this study visit can hardly be described in a few sentences on a blog, but I believe that all of us will try to at least partially transferre the impressions to our colleagues at FOI, and to encourage them to be more involved in this kind of exchange programs!

Thank you..hvala!

The last day of our stay in Florida we have spent remembering on the last summer when UCF students have visited us in Varazdin, as well as on the last amazing ten days we have spent on Florida. There were a lot of nice words, thanks giving, and some tears ..

I think that 'thank you' is just not enough to show our appreciation to our hosts for all what they have done for us during our stay in Orlando - from organizing the conference, taking care of our accommodation and food, the effort to show us their city, but also the whole Florida, etc. In particular, this applies to the Lili, Laura and Michael, and the entire rest of the McNair family whose members are the reason we call it, not just hosts, but also our friends!

But apart from our friends in Florida, I would like to say 'hvala' to the Faculty of Organization and Informatics which make it posibble for us to do this return visit to the University of Central Florida. In addition to the Faculty Board, all the professors and teaching assistants who gave their contribution to this collaboration deserves 'hvala' as well! Thank you!

And at the end of this story I would like to go back to one detail from the very beginning and say: "I hope to see you soon at home .. in Varazdin, or in Orlando!