After a pretty fun weekend it is time to return back to the real world and start doing something useful. For starters, waking up a little earlier!
Mondays aren't fun, that's a fact, but today was phenomenal! The first thing we were supposed to do it go on a tour of the UCF Library. So, in general, two people gave us the tour... Meg Scharf (Associate Director for Public Services) and Laila Miletic-Vejzovic (who works at the Special Collections & University Archives). Laila is actually Croatian, which is something that brought a smile to all of our faces! Meeting someone Croatian at the University of Central Florida wasn't something we expected! Laila spent the last 37 years in the States and she didn't forget the Croatian language, something I thought wasn't actually easy. But, now to the important part... The Library of UCF is amazing and huge, with lots of space for all the UCF students to come, take a place and study or do some research. The Knowledge Commons part of the library is an interesting part because students can ask for help with finding material for their researches, which can be really helpful. The other really cool thing is that the Library has 40 iPads and about 50 laptops available for students to check-out and use for their work if they don't want to carry their own laptops or other devices all over the campus. And the collection of paper, research and books you can see there... I don't even want to talk about that! :D
After the library, we had lunch with Dr. Elliot Vittes, the Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at UCF. For those who don't know what that means, simply said: he's quite important and one of the highest positioned people at UCF. Dr. Rick Schell also joined us for lunch, and he is the Vice President and Chief of Staff at UCF. These two people are the people that I need to say thank you too, because they are the ones who are the biggest supporters of the McNair program that actually gave me this amazing opportunity. While talking to them, we have heard so much nice things about how and why they support the McNair program. Also, they talked quite a lot about a company with over 700,000 employees around the world and how UCF and this company are negotiating some form of cooperation and mutual benefit. The one thing that I really liked about them is that they showed genuine interest in our lives and our studies, which is really refreshing to see. So... Dr. Rick Schell and Dr. Elliot Vittes, thank you so much for everything that you've done for us and we hope that you will keep supporting future generations of students that come to UCF from Croatia as much as you supported us, and even more!
The last meeting that we attended today was in the Barbara Ying Center at the International Services Center. We met with Chris Legoullon, the Recruiting Coordinator at ISC and Mark Hartman, the Associate Director of ISC. They have cleared up all the questions that we had about applying to UCF and to study there. Well, in short, after they had their presentation, I actually think that applying to study at UCF isn't that much of a problem as I originally thought it to be. There are just three steps with a few sub-steps, and everything else is just preparing and ensuring the paperwork is done and OK! More on that later...
At the end, we had a short talk with Angel Cardec, the Director of the Office of International Studies. He is a really busy man so he didn't have enough time to talk a lot with us, so I actually don't know what to write about him and the meeting with him. But, one thing is sure... The man seems like a really happy person always willing talk to students!
That'll be it for today and I hope you'll continue reading what I have to say from Orlando, Florida and UCF!
Have a nice one! :)
The first weekend that we spent here in Orlando was dedicated to cultural events and fun experiences!
We got up quite early the second day we were here to get to the Universal theme park! We had soooo much fun there, it's been incredible! The most amazing thing for me was that I actually don't like this kind of fun, but Universal open my eyes to a whole new spectrum of having fun, so - if you ever go to Orlando, be sure to visit Universal!
OK, and Sunday was special... Just special... We had a little surprise! OK, it was not that little... We went to see the musical Wicked! I know a lot of people don't have the slightest idea of what Wicked is, but for me, a person who knows about Wicked and has wanted to see the show live for a long time, this was an amazing time! I almost cried at my favorite scene of Act 1 (Defying gravity, for those who want to know). That shows you how good it was! :D
And yeah, again, due to some issues I'm not able to post pictures yet, but as soon as I will be able, I'll post them too!
