Posted by Jessica Palmer at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, last time I posted I was writing from London. I’m back now in Dublin, where it is raining, as it seems like it usually is in Dublin. The rain is keeping us all indoors tonight. I watched a movie with fellow Champlain-er and Applied Psychology student Steve Davidson. Now I’m just hanging out with the roomies, playing online quizzes and making pancakes.

London was a lot of fun. We saw all the major sites without being too frantic. One of the spots we started with was the London Eye. I think it’s best described as a giant, permanent Ferris Wheel. You only go around on it once, but the ride takes half an hour, and you get to see the entire London skyline. We rode it just after the sun had gone down, so I got some great pictures of all the buildings lit up, including Big Ben and the Parliament building.

I had gone to London with my roommates, and by Friday morning the last of us had arrived. Ted Schwinden and Patrick Kenney are also both Champlain students. Ted’s a Mass Communication major. Last semester he was actually awarded Underclassman of the Year in Mass Communications. (Way to go Ted!  ) Patrick, who from henceforth will be referred to as PK, is a graphic design major, and one of the best photographers I’ve ever met. Courtney, the final member of our quad, is the first non-Champlain student to study abroad at our campus. She’s a senior at Boston University, which I’m thankful for because it means next semester we won’t be too far away to have an occasional Bob Dylan love festival. Everyone loves Bob.

With the four of us together, we saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and then headed to Westminster Abbey, which was my favorite spot in London. To begin with it was an incredibly intricate and beautiful building, but there is so much history behind it. Entry into Westminster came with a free audio tour, which was great for us stingy college students. I learned that Oliver Cromwell was buried at Westminster, only to have his body dug up, hung, and decapitated a few years after he had been buried. Needless to say, he’s not at Westminster any more. We also saw the Tate Museum, the Globe Theatre, the Tower of London, and saw a play called “Blood Brothers” that had Sporty Spice in it! She was actually amazing. She made me proud to have the Spice Girls first cd in my itunes.

Once we got back to Dublin, it was time to buckle down and get to work. I had a major paper due for my class on Northern Ireland, which I wrote about I.R.A. recruitment tactics. I’m presenting about it next week, so my classmates will be learning about the profile of most I.R.A. recruits: young, male, with family ties to the I.R.A., and a true belief in the I.R.A. cause. I had another paper due for my art class, a comparison of Irish painters Francis Bacon and William Orpen. I don’t think it’s possible for two gentlemen to be more different stylistically. I am completely in love with my art class, because every Wednesday instead of sitting in a classroom we go out to museums and see different exhibits.

Yesterday, after my last class, I watched “Hercules” with PK and Steve, who is quickly becoming my movie buddy. I had never seen it before, but they both knew all the words and sang them as we went along. It turned into a Disney fest afterwards, with the three of us youtube-ing every Disney song imaginable. Ted would pop into the living room and assault us with Disney trivia. I never thought a group of men could out Disney me, but I was wrong.

I’m really looking forward to this next week as well. With my Modern Irish Social History Class I am going on a field trip to the Irish parliament. Friday is the beginning of our ten day Thanksgiving break, during which we are all traveling around Europe. My friend Mike Lahens, who just graduated from Champlain last spring, is arriving on Wednesday to travel around with me. Thursday before we all leave, my roommates and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner! So be prepared for a mix of Parliamentary history and burned Turkey stories.

Posted by Jessica Palmer at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My name is Jessica Palmer, and I’m going to be one of the bloggers for Champlain College! I’m a senior Applied Psychology Major. This semester, I’m studying abroad at Champlain’s Dublin campus. I’m also blogging for the Study Abroad Program, which you can read here http://jessicasinireland.blogspot.com/ . Here, I’m going to talk about what life is like as a Champlain student and as a Psychology Major, as well as talking about some of my studying abroad adventures.

To give you some background, I didn’t start off at Champlain. I originally was an Undeclared Major at Northeastern University in Boston. While I was there, I joined the comedy newspaper as well as the Novice Women’s Crew team. I vacillated a lot back and forth, but by the end of the year I knew that it wasn’t the right place for me. It’s a great school, but I knew that I wanted something smaller where it would be easier for me to get the help I needed .

So I took a semester off from school to live at home and work full time. While doing research looking into new schools, I happened upon Champlain College. What first appealed to me was Champlain’s three-tiered approach to learning. It focuses on academics, career, and extra-curriculars. Every school will have extra-curriculars and job fairs, but it’s a different matter entirely to make it a pillar of how you choose to teach your students. I went to do a tour, and by January 2008 I was a full-time Champlain student.

I began at Champlain as a Mass Communication student. The way that courses are structured, you take classes that relate to your major immediately, and it only took a few tearful nights in the Mac Lab for me to realize that this was not what I wanted. There was no way I was going to be leaving Champlain, but I’d also taken an Introduction to Psychology course that I’d really loved with a great professor. I switched my major over the summer, and was back come fall without even affecting my graduation date.

I’m not someone who knows exactly what I want from life, so choosing a major for me seemed overwhelming. I ended up choosing Applied Psychology for a combination of reasons. Firstly, I had an amazing experience in the Intro class I’d taken with Tammie Consejo. If you ever have a chance to take a class with her you should. She’ll be one of the nicest people you meet in your life, and I’m lucky enough now to have her as my advisor. Secondly, I have a legitimate interest in Psychology, and why people do what they do. I also feel like whatever field I go into, Psychology will help me.

A unique part of Champlain’s Psychology program is that it is specifically Applied Psychology. It’s been described to me as Psychology for business, so you take classes on economics and business leadership as well. For me, it’s not exactly the focus on business that I find valuable, but the focus on how people act in the real world. You study the overall themes of important psychologists and prominent ideas in the field, but I’ve learned a lot about why people act certain ways in certain situations, and I think it’s fascinating. It’s also incredibly useful, and I think it makes me a better person.

Coming to Champlain and majoring in Applied Psychology has been a great experience for me. I have to say that first and foremost, the people at Champlain and in Burlington are incredibly friendly. I immediately had a great group of friends, even though I began school in January and was a year older than a lot of the people I was put with. My roommates went out of their way to introduce me to people and include me in what was going on, which is how everyone on campus acts. Random people on the street start little conversations with you, and I’ve never had an administrator tell me they didn’t have time for me.

One story that really brings some of that into clarity is when I compare my experience signing up for classes last year to that of my little sister, who is a student at a large state school. We had meetings with our advisers during the same week. When she went in, she was there for less than five minutes, her adviser was on the phone the entire time, and they never actually directly spoke to each other throughout the meeting. My meeting took more than an hour, we went over every possible combination of classes, we discussed studying abroad, my adviser called multiple people on the phone only to get more people that might be able to help me, and by the end of the meeting had me talking to another professor about a class I needed to take as an independent study.

That’s what it’s like being a student at Champlain College. I wouldn’t trade it for another university in the world, even now that I’m getting the chance to do some traveling while in Dublin. Right now, in fact, I am sitting in a friend’s apartment in London. The schedule is arranged so all students have Fridays off for traveling, and my one class on Thursday was canceled after a double session last week, so here I am! I’ll be keeping you updated on my Champlain and studying abroad adventures. I’m really excited to be blogging, so if you have any questions just ask!

Posted by Jessica Palmer at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)