English language challenges

Good morning everyone!

Today, I'm going to develop my experience of having an English course at university, also the aspects that I have to improve about my own English skills and my opinion of English in general terms and regard to its useful for me.

I consider that I have had a good experience with English here, for example, I loved to write blogs with different topics through the weeks, basically because I love to write in general. So I enjoyed a lot writing the posts and I totally agree about to use blogs in an English course as a method of teaching and learning. Then, I liked the classes too, miss Andrea teach us very well, I have learned different things in her classes, mainly about vocabulary and I consider it's very useful to improve our English Skills, also I liked to practice the speech and active listening. In addition, I think it's good to learn with a mixed system of classes, having one classroom session and the other in the computer lab. Lastly, I liked the way of evaluation, because we had to use our different skills, they are: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking.

I reckon that I have to improve mainly my English skill regarding listening, because sometimes I don't understand the English speakers when they talk, I consider that they speak too fast or don't pronounce well, but maybe it's just because it's difficult for me to understand them. So I plan to improve that, mostly listening to YouTube videos, movies and songs in English, maybe doing an English course outside the university or remotely, I would travel to a country who its first language be English, for learning.

Finally, I consider English an important language to learn, because it's the universal language and for that reason, if I become a bilingual person or at least someone who can understand English and speak it well, I could do many other things that I can't achieve at the present, for example, to read English books or to talk fluent with an English speaker. I use this language at university (for example: English classes), but I also use it sometimes outside the university and it's primarily when I sing or listen to songs, when I read papers/researches for studying or when I saw YouTube videos, or movies.

That's all for today, well I hope you enjoyed reading my posts, this is the last for the present year, take care, see you...

Changes to my study program

Good morning everyone!

Today I'm going to talk about some changes I think that should be implemented in my career (By the way, I'm studying psychology, I think all of you know it, but if there are doubts yet... ha ha ha, I don't think so, but who knows?)

Firstly, I would like to say that I'm just at the third semester of my career, so I have only had 18 courses until now and maybe I would like or dislike the rest of them. I can't exactly know it, but at this moment, in general, I have liked my study program, in fact, that was one of the reasons of why I chose to study psychology at the "Universidad de Chile", because I like its curriculum. Anyway, even when I like it, it doesn't mean that I don't want to change some things, so...

Regarding the curriculum, I consider the first year is very general. I think it's because we have to balance our skills and knowledge (as the education in Chile it's unequal, so the university it's an instance to prepare professionals with the same skills or at least that is the ideal), also that year in psychology maybe is general, because it's important for us to constitute as social scientists. In those terms I reckon it would be useful and an important part of our professional training.

Then, the second year it's a little more psychological, because we have more courses related with the basic knowledge in psychology, I think this year is more like an introduction in our career. At this moment, I have liked almost all my courses, actually I have only disliked "Historia Social de Chile" and it could be because I have never liked too much the history, but also because I consider that it doesn't related with our career, I guess that if we take it out the curriculum, it wouldn't happen nothing.

Talking now about the courses I haven't have yet, I suppose they are very relevant in our professional training and I love that in the 6th, 7th and 8th semester we have to take elective courses of the 5 mainly areas in psychology (Clinical psychology, Social psychology, Organizational psychology, Educational psychology and Legal psychology), I only feel that we could have a sixth elective in experimental psychology and neurosciences (if we would have it, I believe our formation in psychology would be integral), anyway I like a lot our curriculum just the way it is. Maybe, I would like to add a course of quantitative methodology, because I consider it's important too (In our curriculum we have a course of qualitative methodology, but no one in quantitative).

Psychology curriculum

In connection with the things I previous mentioned, I guess that the length in our career could be less than it currently is, maybe we shouldn't have general courses (related with other social sciences), so we could minimize the length in one year, having only 4 years to get the degree of psychology. But I'm unsure if I would like to do that, because if we hadn't had those courses, maybe it had been more difficult for us to get used to university life.

If I have to refer now about the workload in our career, I consider that it isn't difficult in comparison with others. I think that our courses, tests, projects and times for study are balanced, in some weeks we have more workload, but it isn't something impossible to handle.

Referring now to the use of technology, I think that we could improve more this aspect, because our classes in general are expository and in almost all our courses we don't use the tech too much. (Statistic course is the more representative exception, because we use computers to complement our theoretical knowledge, applying statistical programs and also we get points by playing online with a website called kahoot.it).

I suppose we could improve the teaching methods, because as I said, our courses are mostly theoretical. In this way I think we could have more practice instances, because we learn a lot about psychological theories, but not too much about practice.

We could learn more than these basic concepts and theories

That's all for today, I hope you read me in the next post, see you...

Personal opinions

Good afternoon everyone!, today I'm going to give my opinion about 4 different topics, so...

1.-Owning an exotic pet

First of all, I think it depends on what are we going to consider regarding an exotic pet. For example, if we say that exotic is less common, I could say that animals such as: rabbits, chickens, pigs, etc. would be exotic, but this is because I assume that the person who has that pets isn't from a farm or doesn't live in countryside (so it would be exotic for city residents). Now, if exotic is expensive. I could say that animals such as: lizards, iguanas, macaws, turtles, ferrets, hedgehogs, toads and others could be exotic. But I consider that this pets aren't real exotic, because nowadays they're more common than before, I have friends who have turtles, also a lot of people have hedgehogs or iguanas or ferrets (So... in this terms, I think it's just an expensive pet). At last but not least, I believe that exotic pets/animals are the wild ones and they are only a luxury that rich people take. For example, the girl in the photograph with a cheetah on street like if it was a dog.

In general I dislike the idea of having a pet just because is uncommon, I guess that people do that mainly to impress other persons and in some cases, because they are obsessed or love too much that particular animal, even when is not an ordinary pet (I suppose if you like a lot the hedgehogs you could get one, isn't insane, but if you like tigers it's a different issue, because they're really dangerous). Finally, I'm totally against of having pets that are in danger of extinction, because it's banned to have it, I'm sure the reason is a little bit obvious.



2.-Child Labor

I would like to do a distinction between child labor in terms of slavery and childhood deprived, in contrast with child labor as a necessity of families with less resources or for helping parents with their jobs such a learning process or just because they need the help. In the first case I'm absolutely convinced that it's wrong and an infringement of children's rights. So I consider that we have to do something as society, ensuring that this situation end up.

In the second case I suppose that is right depending on the situation. For example, if a family needs more money, the adults caregivers do all they can, working a lot and they really don't have other way to make money (such as social contributions, credits, loans by closer people) for the basics subsistence needs. I thinks is worthier that the kids work in simple or little jobs, that are complementary with their studies and warranting their rights the most that it can; than to starve to death. Regarding to the previous case, the children could help their parents in their jobs after school, for example, if they work selling things in a store in their house, while the parents are doing other job. And lastly, I imagine that the classic American lemonade stand, isn't an oppressive job and it's a good way for kids to do their own money, whether they need it to help family finance or just because their parents thinks is a good way to increase autonomy and to develop social skills, enjoying the process.

3.-Tattoos

I believe that tattoos are mostly an art, in general I have a good view about them, I think that people with some tattoos are great, especially when they have an important/personal meaning for them. But I don't like all the tattoos, for example, I disagree a little bit respect to the matching tattoos that couples do, especially when they get tattoo the first letter or the name of the other, I guess it could be a bad option, because if you broke up, you probably won't like to have something in your body reminding you the person you used to be with. I also dislike offensive tattoos, with negative messages, such racism, sexism, depression, hate, hopeless, etc. In addition, I dislike when people have too much tattoos that you don't know when the other starts or ends, unless they are linked each other, but if is not the case, I feel puzzled about it and I consider that their skin disappeared or changed into ink, making a kind of art that only the full body tattooed person understands.

Regarding about the stereotypes now, I guess that if you're tattooed it doesn't make you a homeless or a criminal, either it doesn't mean you're irresponsible, rebel or without studies. And the stereotype I consider more ridiculous than the others, is that if you have tattoos you won't be able to have a job. I'm reasonably sure that it doesn't make a significant difference if you are tattooed or not; because nowadays, the most people don't care about it. Maybe, in some jobs that you have to go working formal clothes, they are more careful to chose workers without any tattoos, but as the picture at the left shows (making criticism), it shouldn't be any difference if you are tattooed or not and I consider it in that way, even when I don't have any ink on my body and probably I would never get a tattoo, because although I find them very attractive and a piece of art, I imagine that you have to be very secure about what do you want to have on your skin for the rest of your life and I can't make that decision, because I reckon that people change and also my preferences do it. So... In my view, tattooed persons are brave or more exactly decided, I like that in them.

4.-Killing stray dogs to prevent sanitary problems and animal over population

In my opinion, we don't have the right to decide for other being of what to do with its life. So, as it seen, I'm against of killing stray dogs. There are other ways to reduce their over population, like sterilizing or teaching about responsible care of dogs, this last view could help for preventing sanitary problems related with them too. If people don't want stray dogs in streets, another measure could be having kennels in cities, that care about the dogs and then, if nobody go to claim the animal in a determined lapses of time, they put the dog in adoption in search of a new home.


On the other hand, I suppose that for many people is easy to say that we have to kill stray dogs, but I'm unsure if the persons that think that way are responsible dogs owners, because in many cases, the people say too much outside their minds, but then, inside their acts, show too little. So firstly, for my view, the persons have to look inside themselves if they have been responsible pet owners.


That's all for today, I hope you read me in the next post, see you...