{"id":13,"date":"2016-12-06T17:29:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T17:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/isep\/thailand\/"},"modified":"2018-02-27T22:14:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T22:14:34","slug":"thailand","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Students – Christopher L."},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher L. is a creative writing major who decided to spend his junior\/senior year in Thailand.<\/p>\n

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Bangkok, Thailand, Thammasat University:<\/h3>\n

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Christopher attended the Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What was your major?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Creative Writing\/Thai Studies<\/p>\n

Why did you decide to study abroad?<\/b>
\nChristopher: I always wanted to spend time abroad and Thailand was always a personal interest of mine so it worked perfectly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did your time abroad meet your expectations?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed my time abroad.<\/em><\/p>\n

What were your favorite and least favorite foods?<\/b>
\nChristopher: My favorite foods included any soup or noodle dish, khao moo dang, tom yum, and my least favorite food was all of the hard boiled eggs they served with meals.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you travel a lot?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Yes. All around Thailand (islands, cities, national parks, etc.), Burma, Cambodia twice, and Laos.<\/em><\/p>\n

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What did you do during your free time?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Traveling and occasionally teaching English to native Thai students. <\/em><\/p>\n

What were your favorite and least favorite things to do while abroad?<\/b>
\nChristopher: I loved traveling and interacting with the local people. Trying new foods and driving motorbikes, going to beaches year round. Occasionally the language barrier would get frustrating. <\/em><\/p>\n

Was communicating easy?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Both yes and no. If you were not in the tourist locations many locals could not speak any English.<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you learn a new language, and how fluent would you consider yourself?<\/strong>
\nChristopher: I learned a little, enough to give directions and handle money, as well as hold light conversation. I would say I was not fluent at all.<\/em><\/p>\n

What difference did you find with regards to academics?<\/b>
\nChristopher: I found their academics pretty similar. Though they did a lot of group work, which I did not enjoy too much. But it is a laid back environment with teachers coming in as they please and same with students. <\/em><\/p>\n

What advice would you give to other students traveling abroad?<\/b>
\nChristopher: Try to learn as much of the language as possible before leaving for your country. Even if you just get numbers it will be a big help. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Think back to when you first arrived in your host country. What was something that surprised you and\/or something that was totally different from what you are used to in the U.S.?<\/b>
\nChristopher: There were motorbikes everywhere, horrendous traffic jams, people yelling and selling food everywhere. I also am not from a city so going to one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world was a big change from home.<\/em><\/p>\n

How would you summarize your overall experience?<\/b>
\nChristopher: The best decision I ever made.<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you have any suggestions for improving the program? Anything you wish you had done better to help you during this process?<\/b>
\nChristopher: I wish I had known about all of the classes offered at my host university. I did not find out about their full course catalog until the second semester of my year abroad<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher L. is a creative writing major who decided to spend his junior\/senior year in Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand, Thammasat University:     Christopher attended the Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013. What was your major? …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"left-navigation.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/isep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}