On Friday, 12 Mei 2023, the character education and development class conducted a field study at Olifant School accompanied by Ms. Elga Andriana, Ph.D. The event’s main topic was character education, titled “The Art of Implementing Character Education.” The activity consists of presenting material, sharing experiences by Olifant students, and question & answer related to the material from IUP Psychology students.

The initial discussion mainly focused on the roles of the community, teachers, and schools for their students. Olifant emphasizes that the students have a decisive role when they have Teaching-Learning activities. For example, teachers encourage students to make a target and agreement for the class by deciding on one behavior that everyone in the class has to improve. With commitment and responsibility, students are motivated to be committed to the class and take accountability for what they do in each class session. Students also favor active class participation as they engage in class discussions and introduce various new ideas to the debate. read more

Manar Al-Ogaidi is an exchange student from Macquarie University. Manar’s student exchange program was at the international undergraduate psychology program in Universitas Gadjah Mada. Courses she completed included: Community Empowerment and Psychoeducation, Psychology of Communication, Mental Health, Psychology of Marriage and Family, Psychology and Culture, Psychology of Disaster and Crisis, Psychology of Emotion and Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

She really loved the new learning environment! She felt extremely welcomed and comfortable from the first time she arrived. She really appreciated how they were given the ‘feels at home away from home’ T-shirts when they first arrived too! Those kind, unforgettable gestures from both peers and teaching staff continued throughout her time at Jogja and in UGM. She also found the classrooms really interesting as they reminded her of a highschool layout. She loved that since the class seemed close together, which is different to her uni classes in Sydney with a cohort of over 1000.  read more

On Thursday, 9 March 2023, the class of Psychology and Culture conducted a guest lecture with Prof. Byron J. Good, a Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School alongside Prof. Subandi, M.A., Ph.D.

The lectures mainly talk about how mental health problems could emerge after the happenings of a conflict. It focuses on the effect of culture towards mental health and vice versa. In this context, Prof. Byron shared about the well-being of people in Aceh post-tsunami in 2004. Prof. Byron developed mental health interventions by assessing trauma between people in Aceh after experiencing the Tsunami. read more

For Vina, her exchange studies took place in Leeuwarden, Netherlands at the University of Groningen: Campus Fryslan. She took five courses namely Explaining Human Behaviour, Homes and Car: GRL Homes and Cars: Technologies, Citizens and the Energy Transition, Language and Culture, Psychological Perspectives on Leadership, and lastly, Diversity, Intersectionality and Global Health. All the courses were taught in English as the program also involved international students from outside of the Netherlands. She was a bit hesitant and scared when she first knew about the courses that were offered as not many were directly related to the major that she followed in UGM which is Psychology. But once the classes started, it was actually very interesting to learn some things that she would never encounter as a Psychology major. It was also exciting to be able to have many discussions about different cultures and even share about Indonesia to other students in those classes. read more

On Tuesday, 21 February 2023, the class of Children and Adolescents with Special Needs conducted an International Guest Lecture with Prof. David Evans from Sydney School of Education and Social Work, the University of Sydney. The main topic of the lecture is about ‘Universal Design for Learning’ which highlights the notion that various objects can be used by many people including people with disabilities with the development of universal design. According to the Centre of Excellence in Universal Design, Universal Design is where an environment has the design and composition that can be accessed, acknowledged and utilized primarily by all people regardless of their age, size, ability, or disability. The term ‘universal’ is applied since it’s capable of meeting the needs of people and beneficial for everyone. read more