Article+Reviews

In this article i believe that the main focus was about culture and how perspectives change when you put yourself into that position. In this situtatuion it was a college professor who saw all the "outside" stuff and heard about students thoughts about different ideas. I feel that the only way to completely understand something is to put yourself in that position and observe. A professor plays a different role than a student and even though i go to class everyday and have a professor in front of me I still do not know what it is actually like to be a professor. What are they thinking about? What is their main focus? As a student we just rely on the professor to give us the information and we take notes and study for the exams or do any work. As students we seem to "rate" the professor on how well they teach or if we like them or not. So as a professor do they "rate" their students or talk about the progress of the class. I feel that this is a main issue with culture is that people do not understand what its really like unless you are to be put in that position.

The article reminded me of my first couple weeks here at college. We had to read a book over the summer just like they required it at the University in the article. We also had small groups in which we had discussions about what we read. It stated in the article that they couldnt really have discussions because no one read it but we had questions that went along with the book. I feel like the University in article tried to force the students to become invovled in activities and some in which they might not even have interest in. Here at Bloomsburg I feel that it was good when we had orientation days and were grouped with random people within the same majors because you got to know a lot more people outside your dorm building. I feel that the students should have the choice of what activities to be involved in. I can relate to this because i joined soccer by myself and got put onto a team with 7 other girls that i didnt know. I was very nervous about it at first but i loved every moment of it and getting to know other people.

I feel like there were a lot of good points in this reading assignment and it went about international students and how they feel about the "American" way of doing things. In class we have been talking about the differences of students here at Bloomsburg but some how, in some way we seem to be able to connect to everyone. If you take it further and compare yourself to someone from a different country I feel that there are so many more differences that similarities. They were talking about how American are so nice and always asking how you are doing. But then they said that they would always get their number but it always seemed as if the plans fell through. They also noticed that Americans are so independent, which to a point i believe it true. We like to be with our friends all the time, and go out to dinner but we seem to do a lot of stuff on our own. For an example with our class discussion the other day about being independent. A lot of students said that we are more independent throughout the day while we are going to classes, eating lunch, and just getting work done at the library or the kehr. At night is when we seem to get together with our friends and watch our favorite shows together or just have a good time. They also compared the "party" life here in America to Japan. In Japan they like to hang out and casually have a few drinks while here we tend to just drink to get drunk. In Japan they dont see this as hanging out. The difference in academics is that the professors here seem to be more willing to help and available. I believe this is true by offering us office hours to be able to go to the professor with any questions. They always seem to be willing to help at a great extent. Overall i feel when we start to compare America to any other country we are going to find so many different ways of living and different cultures. This is when it becomes interesting to compare ourselves to the other places around the world and i feel that we could learn the most about ourselves that way,