PSU in Paraguay program keeps growing

This program arises from an agreement between Pittsburg State University, with the Catholic University of Asuncion, and the Paraguay - Kansas Comittee. In which PSU offers classes in Paraguay for the first two years of undergraduate studies and this are the general education credits required as part of the curriculum for all students that choose a career in the United States.

Students may either complete the program with a chosen career on the Pittsburg campus,or may be also transferred to another university in Kansas or anywhere else in the country.The classes in Asuncion are taught in English mostly by PSU faculty, they are held monthly in modules, which means that students can enroll at any time and the requirements they need to meet are the same as the regular admission requirements for international students at Pittsburg State University.

Andy Gonzalez, senior in Human Resources Development, is part of the PSU IN Paraguay program and he is graduating next December. ''I had always wanted to go to college in the US, so my family and I were constantly looking for options and this is how we learned about the program,’’ he said.

‘’Pittstate has gifted me with happy memories, good friends and a chance to learn from its excellent faculty. They provided me with the opportunity to find a career that really fits who I am,’’ Gonzalez said.

‘’I strongly encourage students to take advantage of all of the exchange programs that PSU
offers, you can experience new things and learn a lot about yourself in the process,’’  he said: ‘’It's one of those opportunities that you will never regret doing it.’’

Cynthia Woodburn, from the Department of Mathematics taught her Intro to Analytic Process class in Paraguay, ''It was a wonderful experience and I am so glad that I did it,’’ she said.

‘’It is very much different from teaching in Pittsburg, but the students were very friendly and even though sometimes they talked a bit more in class than American students, they were also very hard working and had good background of knowledge.’’

Woodburn said: ‘’Students were constantly asking me questions about the subject and it was very obvious that they wanted to learn. I taught a three hour, Monday through Friday class that lasted three weeks.’’  

‘’I would definitely recommend it to another colleague on campus, because I believe the experience made me a better teacher.’’

According to Cynthia: ‘’Driving in Asuncion was very different, the traffic was not at all like in Pittsburg, but the country was very beautiful,’’ she said: ‘’they took me to one of the tourist places, called ‘’Iguazu Falls’’ located in the boarder of Brazil and that was such an amazing experience.’’

‘’There were lots of beautiful blooming trees with pretty colorful flowers and I also got to see some blue orchids while I was there, so that was fun.’’

‘’I would definitely go back if I could and the experience really made more empathetic to international students with the language differences, if feel like I have a better understanding of how hard it is to adapt to a different culture or just to be away from home,’’ she said.

Gary Wilson, from the Department of Social Sciences taught his Intro to Sociology class in Paraguay two times, first in Spring of 2009 and then again in Spring of 2011, since the subjects in the program alternates every year.

‘’It’s a bit of a culture shock and overall is a great experience. It’s interesting because the students are already familiar with each other, because they move through the program together and even though sometimes students enroll only for certain classes, still most of the time the teacher is always the new person in the class and that changes the atmosphere in the room,’’ he said.

According to Wilson: ‘’Students are very conscientious about their work and they are very concerned about making a good grade in the class. They want to make sure of almost always having perfect attendance, because the class only lasts around a month so if you miss a day in class you will miss a lot of material and they understand that,’’ he said.

‘’I would absolutely recommend this experience to another instructor in PSU, because I just think is such a wonderful opportunity, he said: ‘’ In 2009 I visited the ‘’Jesuit Ruins,’’ located in Encarnacion.’’

‘’Then in 2011, the weekend before my class started I spent a couple of days in the beach of Montevideo, Uruguay, and the weekend after my class was over; we went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, so sometimes you get to visit the surrounding countries as well,’’  he said.    

One of my favorite websites..

Personally, this is one of the sites that I daily visit because is one of the best ways to stay informed and updated with what is currently going on in my country. Not a lot of newspaper’s websites in Paraguay are as updated as this one and sometimes I even find myself informing my family about news that could potentially impact them. It also includes articles from all around South America and the whole world but it mostly focuses on countries surrounding us, like Brazil and Argentina. There are hundreds of absolutely amazing and interesting news websites in the US but unfortunately they don’t pay as much attention to what happens in South America unless is extremely controversial.          

http://www.abc.com.py/

PSU students present Nigeria to the community

There are currently ten Nigerian students at Pittsburg State University and last Friday they put together an International Gathering filled with traditional and authentic food, music, and the presentation about the country was given by Yemisi Olubi, sophomore in Nursing.

 ‘’It took me three days to put together this event because I’ve been really busy with school, since my Major requires a lot of effort.’’ She said: ‘’The organization process includes getting to the African market located in Kansas City, to purchase all the ingredients necessary for the meals that people tasted today’’

According to Olubi, the dishes consisted mostly in ‘’jollof rice,’’ made with basmati rice, tomatoes, onions and special seasoning, we also made ‘’moi moi,’’ a Nigerian steamed bean pudding prepared with black-eyed beans and fresh ground peppers. The guests also had spinach soup, fried plantain, chicken and beef.    

She said: ‘’Fortunately, PSU gave me 50 $ to buy all the ingredients we needed to make the meals and then I was responsible of finding them.’’

Yemis Olubi also presented some information about her country to the audience, like the fact that Nigeria is located in the Western part of Africa and it is a very diverse and highly populated country, she said.

According to Olubi: ‘’the official language in Nigeria is English, but we have three major languages,’’ she said: ‘’the religion that is predominantly practiced is Christianity and Nigerian people are formed by tribes and several ethnic groups, distributed across our 36 different states.’’

She also mentioned what the major tourist attractions were, like the Gurara waterfalls, Zuma Rock, Buatura Oasis, Kajun Castle, and the Lagos Island, where most business transactions take place.

Yemis Olubi said: ‘’This time, the International Gathering was completely full so I was very surprised of that, and I believe they all liked it because they came up to me after the event was over to give thanks,’’ she said: ‘’I think the PSU community is brave for wanting to try new things, because that is something that sometimes scares me to do but they were very open about getting to know my country.’’

Bruna Pinhoni, senior from Brazil said: ‘’ I like that today I understood some more about Nigeria, because it was the first time I learned all this facts about the country, and just like every International Gathering, it was very informative and interesting.’’

‘’ My favorite part about the event was the presentation itself and the food was really good too,’’ said the International Studies and Criminal Justice student.   

According to the International Office, there are two more Gatherings scheduled for this semester; the next one will take place in October and it will be about Paraguay.

Dale K presents Hypnotism show at PSU

By: Adriana Perez

Brendan Finley enjoyed being hypnotized at the Overman Student Center last Thursday, ‘’Even though I am aware that I was hypnotize, I still don’t really remember much about what happen out there.. Especially about the fact people tell me that I started acting like a cow at one point,’’ said the 18 year old freshman student of Elementary Education.

‘’What made me consider doing it was the whole idea of being relaxed and not caring about what is going on, and just listening to him,’’ said Finley: ‘’If you are going to do it you really have to want to be hypnotized, it was definitely a fun experience and I think I made a good choice by volunteering because I love doing stuff like that..’’

According to Dale K, ‘’Hypnosis is simply a word that people came out with as a label to be used in movies and stuff, but my show is based on the power of suggestion, which is a total different thing. The more you get this people to trust you up here in the stage, the more comfortable they are with things, ’’ he said.

For example if I say: ‘’Is getting warm out here, the first time they will say no, then I say yeah.. It really is getting warm and they start to go.. Yeah it is kinda getting warm’’ and then they see other people getting warm and consequently they start to feel the same way, so you have to gradually push your statement until they become aware of it to a point that it becomes real to them.

Dale K says he can recognize when one of the participants behavior is not being genuine, especially in their responses because they might be faking it just to ‘’put up a show for their friends in the audience’’ and in that case they might have to go back to their seats because the dynamic is not right, ‘’they haven’t relax to a point that they’re going to accept anything and the reason it doesn’t work for them is because they’re nervous or distracted with something else.’’

According to Dale K, the reason he got into this field was that about twenty years ago, when he was attending high school, his dad was a part time clown so he grew up around variety acts and then when he saw his first hypnotism show he was simply blown away and said to himself ‘’Wow.. What is that?’’ and immediately went to libraries and read books, and continued studying it because ‘’you have to know a lot about it before you can built a successful show,’’ he said.

‘’For example, this specific environment is not very conducive for Hypnosis because the lights are bright, the crowd is loud and the speakers are humming so you have to learn how to focus beyond all that and I have to apply a proper technique to make it happen, and it depends completely in their ability to concentrate.’’

Dale K said: ‘’This is not a magic supernatural spell, it is simply the idea that they get confortable up here and they want to listen to my voice, it involves psychology and the power of subjection. It is a link that you can create by building trust between the hypnotist and the subject, and that is what makes them start to remember amazing things.’’

He said also that, if you want to learn to help people clinically, then you have to become a certified hypnotherapist and then you can work with individuals, helping them overcome their phobias, lose weight or quit smoking, you can also help them gain confidence.

‘’I travel all year and I meet so many different people with a variety of issues that they want to address, they feel like they need to reverse a disruptive behavior and you can actually alter those patterns using hypnosis. But it is important to remember that you are not going to get any physical change, because hypnosis is simply a tool that applies will power,’’ he said.

According to Dale K, ‘’The only case that is different than the others is when it involves weight loss because that is obviously a physical change, but the way it works is when hypnosis encourages you to take better and healthier choices, but you are the one making the decisions and this is simply a tool that helps you do that.’’   

‘’People can ultimately learn how to hypnotize themselves, because is all about being self-aware of your own body. Self-hypnosis is a very powerful thing that is based on meditation and deep concentration.’’ 

Dale K said: ‘’Everybody can be hypnotized, there is a black and white rule that I’ve learned, which is that it won’t work on everybody, but I think it can.. It just takes some people longer than others to get to that stage, the quicker ones I can use for the show,’’ he said.

‘’I would want to keep everybody on the stage but it might take me two hours to get anything out of them and I’m not here for that, this is an hour long show so I have to keep going as fast as I can.’’

He does around one hundred and fifty shows a year, over seventy schools, also casinos and corporate events. 

‘’Meditation and Hypnosis are very similar; the thing about meditation is that you are focusing on yourself and become engaged in a subtle self-south process. Hypnosis on the other hand, you can do it solo, one on one, or in a big group like this and it involves everything that is happening around them,’’ he said.   

According to Dale K, hypnosis is different for everybody and the idea is that: ‘’In my show we try to get volunteers to relax, forget about stage fright and how nervous they might feel.’’

‘’When they finally get to that comfort zone, they are just willing to be suggestible. So basically the longer they are up here on the stage, the more they trust me and most importantly, the more they trust their own imagination,’’ he said

Questions

What are your thoughts so far on blogging and have they changed how you look at websites in general?

I personally think is a very interesting and useful tool for people that might otherwise not have a voice, because it allows individuals to express themselves freely and interact with other people that might share their same interest. Now whenever I look at a website, especially if is an opinion piece I try to put myself more in the writers place and be more open minded about the message that he or she is trying to express, by also respecting the fact that the person took the time and effort to do so.

How will Blogging fit into your lifestyle?

Blogging keeps me excited about what I'm covering, especially because my blog is going to focus on the news and relevant current events happening around campus, and even worldwide. It will hopefully inform people and sometimes even establish a reaction from them.  

 

http://newsworldtoday-adriana.blogspot.com/