Kiki went to the University of Warwick and took four modules from the Psychology Faculty: Language and Cognition, Non-Verbal, Psychology and Law, and Negotiation and Influence. She was really enthusiastic but a bit scared at the same time because many of her classes have a lot of reading lists. She felt amazed at how engaging the lessons are despite being a big class. At first, catching up with the study pace was also hard. The learning activities consist of seminars that discuss the readings for the week, video workshops where we watch videos and analyze the gesture and non-verbal from it. Negotiation roleplay, weekly assignments, quizzes, and watching documentaries in the psychology and law class. There are big differences between learning in Warwick and UGM, last semester, UGM classes were still mixed between online and offline classes. Meanwhile, the University of Warwick is entirely offline. Therefore, the classes feel more lively and engaging. Other than that, UGM classes are more generic and usually give the students book references to read so the students are capable of understanding the material better. University of Warwick classes teach more specific topics and give many journal articles as references. But this might be because most of the lessons she has taken in UGM are mandatory. As for Warwick’s, it was elective. In Warwick, they rarely give homework or assignments. Even when they did, it did not take much time, and she could finish it in one sitting.
Student Stories
Caca did her exchange program at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) in Jeonju, South Korea. She took five courses that were all taught in English: International Ethics and Social Justice, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Practical English, Social, Economic, and Environmental Sustainability, as well as Understanding British and American Culture. None of the courses are directly related to her major, which is Psychology, because all courses offered by the Psychology Department are conducted in Korean. It was challenging since the classes are very different from one another. There were big classes with students from very different backgrounds, and there was also a small class with students from very similar backgrounds where all of them even have the same religion. But still, many of them were raised in different cultures, so sometimes she heard brave and controversial opinions which shocked her. Aside from the learning environment, as a whole experience, she really wanted to go back home. It was super difficult to manage everything on her own and she got very homesick during her first week there. She was sick in quarantine so she just video-called her family and cried all day.
Andhila ‘Lila’ Sasadara is a third-year undergraduate student from IUP Psychology, Gadjah Mada University, Batch 2020. Recently, Lila has just finished her short course as part of taking the International Academic Exposure program in South Korea, specifically at Yonsei University for their summer school program, known as Yonsei International Summer School. According to Lila, this program is very beneficial for conducting a study abroad within a short period of time. The summer program lasted for 6-weeks, students can enroll in a maximum of 3 courses with a total of 12 credits. Students can study about their designated courses while enjoying the city of Seoul and its culture. For Lila, she enrolled in 3 courses which include Media Psychology, Introduction to Media Study, and Korean Topics related to globalizations and multiculturalism. The reason she chose those courses is to relate with the study of psychology and turns out, the courses are heavily focused on human’s behavior and several psychological theories are mentioned within those courses. The chosen courses also inline with the mandatory internship courses which are implementation of learning media, information technology, interdisciplinary approach in psychology, and contemporary issues in psychology. Thus, this program makes it easier to convert my credits from Yonsei University to my transcript in Gadjah Mada University since the courses are inline with the study of Psychology. Another point, the lecturers are nice and genuine in giving scores for the students so it really made Lila grateful for enrolling for this program. Overall, the experience in conducting short-courses at Yonsei University was very valuable and it’s a great opportunity for choosing the International Academic Exposure category if students’ prefer the shorter period of student exchange. In obtaining the information for the upcoming International Academic Exposure programs, students can visit https://oia.ugm.ac.id/ for more options in selecting programs for taking the International Academic Exposure by International Undergraduate Program, Gadjah Mada University.
Lufti is a third-year undergraduate student from the International Undergraduate Program, Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada. At the moment, he is attending the exchange program at the University of Groningen for the spring semester of 2022. He said that living in Groningen is a choice that he will never regret and he found many reasons for this. Amongst them is that the environment there is very student-friendly and the facilities are easily accessible for students to use, such as the sports centers and libraries. In addition to that, the transportation around the city is very bicycle-friendly, which can make traversing the city feel like a grand adventure. Overall, he said that the student-friendly city of Groningen is a perfect choice for him, especially since his needs as an exchange student have been fulfilled there.
Nadya Andhita, a student from batch 2017, has a particular fondness towards the art of photography. She has known of photography since she was little, but started taking it more seriously as she entered an extracurricular activity during high school. There, Nadya learned of the theoretical bases and techniques of professional photography. Her skills became better as she practiced, and she proved it by placing second in a Canon Photo Marathon event. She recalled, “the theme of the photo was ‘Appreciating Each Other’, and I submitted a photo of two siblings, with the older one feeding her younger sister.”