I think the amount of times my friends from home asked me if I actually go to school or have work is comical. Of course I go to school! Well, four days a week I do, which is honestly amazing because I get the freedom to travel most weekends. BUT, besides traveling, yet I do attend school and actually really enjoy my classes as well.
I have three classes I genuinely enjoy here which are: Drug Use and Behavior, Abnormal Psychology, and Ethics for Bioscience. My favorite by far is Ethics for Bioscience, which transfers back as Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in Healthcare at Northeastern. I think I’m really enjoying it because I had just come off my first co-op where I was working in a hospital. It was interesting to receive these ethical dilemmas and be able to understand them from a point of view of someone who had actually had experience in a hospital setting. To clarify, I’m a Human Services major and worked in the Patient and Family Services Department, so this class was especially intriguing because I’m not a medical student, which almost all of the other students in this class are. In this class we discuss the most the prevalent issues in medical care, which include euthanasia, physician-aid-in-dying, abortion, in-vitro fertilization, clinical trials, etc. etc. My teacher does a very good job at remaining unbiased and allowing students to discuss their opinions on these subjects, but also encourages everyone to remain open minded and not allow specific, set-and-stone beliefs affect their decision-making.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am still in Thailand because most of the cases we discuss are US-based. This class has really showed me the insane influence that America has on the rest of the world and also how often we are studied and analyzed as a country. This is also an international college, so majority of the curriculum comes from the American Education system I believe. The class as a whole is really interesting because it’s nice to hear the opinions and arguments from students of different backgrounds besides just Americans. The cross-cultural context of this class is really nice to have because where you come from really influences how you view a certain idea and I would not have gotten to see this if I had taken this class back in America.
And now where do I actually do most of my studying and homework? There is no one specific place. Most of the time I bounce around and try different coffee shops (that have free Wi-Fi). Or I do work in the school cafeteria or the mini library in the international college. I’m the type of person who likes a change of scenery each time they go to study or do work, so there isn’t one place in particular that I get work done.
