For the last day of our amazing trip we went to Disney World. It was the highlight of our staying in Orlando and I'm sure we will remember it for a very long time. Not only because oft he amazing Disney World but also because of the fact that we are all aware that it's time to say goodbye, which wasn't so easy after the amazing 10 days there. We spent the whole day together, talking about random topic. The ending was Disney Electrical Parade, huge light show of all the Disney characters.
Taking in the consideration that everything we've done there was done with purpose, it is important to mention that even in Disney World we managed to learn something. Once more time we were able to see the quality of their Hospitality Management, and how much they appreciate cleanliness, ecology and how much they are raising awareness about volunteering, even in this kind of places. They had corner for volunteers there! At the end of the day, streets were clean as int he morning, trash was separated, organization was on very high level and we concluded that we can learn really a lot from them.
As the end of every fairytale comes somewhere around midnight, our fairytale was also at the end and it was time to go home.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank to all the people and institutions who made this trip possible for us: University in Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, McNair scholars program. I would also like to thank to all the people who were investing a lot of energy and time to make our trip so magical: Michael Aldarondo-Jeffries, director of McNair program, Natalia Sepulveda, student and coordinator oft he project, and a lot of McNair Scholars students who spent their time with us.
One more surprise on Saturday- great trip to Kennedy Space Center. This time we even reached the Moon! J We explored everything what was there, found out a lot about famous flights and got a chance to try one virtual flight, which is only one of the possibilities this Center is offering.
The day was full of photography and hanging out together. We're all sad because we're leaving very soon.
As a part of intercultural learning and award for the successfull working week, our hosts prepared amazing surprise for us. Saturday in Miami! Sleeping during the whole trip due to the exhaustion has changed at the moment we entered Miami. We were all enjoying the relaxed atmosphere with a lot of photography and new information about the city, people, University and cooperation.
Good morning! We are ready for the rest of Information Fluency conference and preparation of our presentations. It was hard-working morning in McNair office. We were all doing our rehearsals and trying to make the last change in our presentations.
After the lunch we went to the Classroom 1, where the rest of McNir students were waiting for us. First we went through short introduction, then we came to delivery part. First three presentations were about Croatia and Varaždin, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb and our educational system. Second part were presentations of our research papers. Audience has shown the huge interest tin our presentations with a lot of questions and long discussions.
My research paper was connected with the topic of the conference – Information Fluency and multiculturalism. The questionnaire was distributed among the students from different parts oft he world and they were supposed to answer on set of questions based on self-evaluation and the topic was their participation in multicultural environment and how this is developing their IF skills. Taking into consideration that this topic is very broad, I would say that this research was only first part of the whole process which is going to be continued in future. After the research final result was showing that students are not so familiar with the IF skills, though they are already using some of them.
After few working hours, we continued our discussion in more relaxed atmosphere with sandwiches and juices. Our conclusion was that we already miss those people and there are still few days left here.
Wednesday morning. The weather is sunny, and we are happy again, waiting at the same bust station for the bus which is going to take us to the main campus. First thing thait is waiting for us int he morning is literature with dr. Cecilia Milanes. McNair office is today small creative place where we are listening parts of the new book from amazing literate.
After the interesting morning – here is the moment which we were waiting for a very long time. We're spending the afternoon with Ambassador Harriet L. Elam – Thomas. With mix of excited feelings we were walking to the Madam Ambassador's office, where some of the students were already waiting for us, together with her. One hour passed in conversations about our wishes, plans, interests, country and education. After finishing our part of introducing, Madam Ambassador started to talk about herself and her life. She was talking about the attitudes, life experience, things that are on her mind, some of her successes and failures. Several time she emphasized how much she supports the cooperation between FOI and UCF, and that she thinks something like this is very valuable because students are getting international experience, chance to learn about the country and all the bad and good sides of it. She stressed out how she thinks that Internet can give us a lot of information, but those are only information which are coming from someone's perception and how the best way to learn is to develop our own perception through visiting the country and meeting the people. She was also talking about her perception of the world and how people are actually close to each other through the stuff they are using every day, that are made in other countries. She thinks how this is showing cooperation between countries and helping each other. Her final message was that we should think more with our hearts and less with our brains because that's the only way to bring the positive change in society. With this thing on our mind, she left us to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and wished us to have a great time in Florida.
After the amazing time with madam ambassador, we went on volunteer fair, where UCF students were presenting their volunteer activities. We also had chance to help through informing ourselves on how we could help but also putting the words into action and making the sandwiches for homeless people.
After the lunch time we were part of opening of Information Fluency Conference and some lectures connected to this topic. The last part was poster section where some of our students and professor where presenting the cooperation between FOI and UCF, mainly the last project – International Student Research Symposium.
Back to campus to prepare our presentations! Tomorrow is our big day!
Today has started with strong rain. We became sad at one point only because we enjoy sunny days at UCF campus and because of the outdoors activities we planned for today. Our mood suddendly became better after the warm coffee and a loto f ideas and volunteer discussions with Vu Tangstudent and volunteer at UCF. At the afternoon, after the raine stopped, we went to campus sightseeing and history learning with Vu, who was incharged to take a campus tour with us. She showed us different things and explained how UCF works with their student sin a way that they're not only becoming good students but also good and quality people. They perceive creativity as something very important and they are trying to encourage it with delightful working area and by enocuraing students to create their own ideas and projects.
When we entered the Student Union building, we were all curious if there is any stoty bout the logo enclosed with the ribonns. The we found out about the old legend which says the if you do the step inside the enclosure, you might never finich the college. At the end Vu adviced us to stick to that rule, the same as UCF students, because you never know. ;)
Monday morning has started the same as for UCF students, standing at the bus station, waiting for the bus to the main campus. After extremely fast morning coffee while catching wireless in library, we went to the sightseeing of library and education about their dana bases, which was delivered from lady who was born in Croatia, Zadar. We saw the UCF online archives and had a nice talk about USA and Croatia, and Laila Miletic-Vjezovic has promised to visit us in Croatia soon.
The lunch was extremely interesting and delightful. We spent our lunch time in discussions with dr. Elliot Vites (Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies) and dr. Rick Schell (Associate Director for Public Services) about the topics regarding entrepreneurship, international cooperation, our universities, faculty and our plans and desires for future. As always, such nice company makes the time running really fast, and it came time for presents. Dr. Rick Schell has immediately put on his new FOI t-shirt and wished to all of us to spend nice time on Florida.
Third meeting was with International services center, with Chris Legoullon (ISC Recruitiing Coordinator) and Mark Hartman (ISC Associate Director), where we discussed about UCF opportunities that might be interesting for international students. After the great presentation and many questions, we delivered promise FOI gave 2 years ago and gave them Croatia flag, to have it in their flags collection in office.
The end oft he day was also int he UCF spirit, helping others. We found out the TOMS story and went to buy ur own pair of TOMS (http://www.toms.com/). We bought them in WHOLE FOODS store (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/) which has humanitarian tone, ecological products and a lot od ecological and healthy food, which reminded us once more that man feels the bas when he does something for others.
Our free Sunday was reserved to spend some time with McNair students. After waking up and short sightseeing of downtown of Orlando, w event in front of the theater where McNair students were waiting for us with amazing surprise – going on show to see musical Wicked. After three interesting hours of musical and round of applause at the end performers came back to the stage and presented to us beautiful and creative gesture. Throughout all their shows, they are trying to make a difference and help the community. After every show, all the performers are gathering in front of the theater in order to encourage people to donate money for fighting against the AIDS and breast cancer. The name of the program is Broadway Cares, and during the show they manage to collect even huge amount of money. When giving their donations, people have chance to win some stuff with logo of musical. Once again, we managed to proof that big heart of even one person can make a difference. And when there is more people united in purpose, then this difference can make a lot of positive changes in their community.
Today we managed to spend really interesting day with a lot of nice moments. Since we found out that UCF is well known in the field of Hospitality Management-u and its quality, we went to Universal Studio Park in order to relax and learn something useful regarding that field on practical examples, both at the same time. Since we had interesting meeting regarding practical experiences of their students during our first day at UCF, we found out that Universal Studio is also one of the opportunities which has been offered to students to go and gain practical experience there. It can be good opportunity for students in terms of the good organization and handling big number of people coming there. The day was really educational, interesting and special, especially because we had a chance on special way to find out something about the quality of the services and collects tongues of good case practices to use them once.
Hello everyone!
We're done with our first day on our trip, still under excitement mixed with a lot of emotions, which is really hard to conduct in few sentences and photography’s.
We spent really intense day at the University of Central Florida, where we had chance to go on a lot of meetings with people who are working at the different centre, each one with their own purpose.
First meeting was with Experiential Learning and Career Services. There we had chance to meet two person who work with students on different activities.
First one of them, Ulla Isaac, is Acting Director in Experiential Learnings showed us through her presentation how students are getting chances for experiential learning in the fields of their interest and fields they are planning to work in during their future life. She mentioned how it is the best to have a combination of theoretical knowledge from the faculty and practical knowledge when going on internship in the company. She highlighted the importance of having good and diverse CV in order to find the job easier.
After the interesting presentation on the third floor of the building, we went to the first floor in order to listen the presentation delivered by dr. Bill Blank, Director of Career Development. Throughout his presentation, we managed to find out how they are preparing their students to successfully find their desired job and to stay at their work place as long as they would like to. On the second floor of the building there is a lot of the rooms where students can practice their interviews and prepare better.
After the lunch we went to the Recreation and Wellness Center, where students can do the sport they like, take a rest from their studying or just to do what they like.
The last meeting of the day was with dr. Maribeth Ehaz, Vice President Student Development and Enrollment Services. First we introduced ourselves, then we talked about their Knights helping Knights Pantry center, which was invented and developed by the students in order to help the students with bad financial situation. We continued our conversation with discussion about the importance of volunteering and being part of different students’ activities.
Between every meeting we had chance to see some parts of the campus, and the last party of the day was dinner and discussion about the interesting day we had.
