Alyssia and the American Dream

A few more days to go, a few more exams to write, a few more papers and presentations to do.. Yes, there is finally an end in sight!

Not only makes that these last few weeks a lot more bearable, also it means that I can really start to focus on my exchange! It’s only three more months before I leave (can you imagine?) and I really cannot wait.

Last week I met Gary Davis, the head of the honors department at UNK, who will basically be the person I need to go to if there are any problems. He was here in Middelburg and we talked a lot about the awesome opportunities I will have over there! He was very enthusiastic about us coming, he even insisted that I would do undergraduate research in psychology there! As my plan was already to do an IRP in my last semester, this extra semester of research experience will definitely add to my resume. Also, it is even possible to do sports there for credits! Obviously these can’t count towards my RA degree but at least it is nice to have a few hours of sports every week. The choices are unlimited: tumbling, swimming, archery, bowling.. whatever you want.

This exchange just brings so many opportunities. Especially for psychology students it is great! There are so many psych courses that you almost drown in them. There are also lab courses and more practical psychology courses, which we don’t have at RA. Definitely sounds very good to me.

Aside from the academic part, I just cannot wait to have some American food: poptarts, Reese’s cups (although I cannot really eat them.. allergies ugh!), big American hamburgers, pizzas.. I really do hope they have some healthy options there too haha! I can’t wait to see a real American football game, the cheerleaders and all that cliché stuff you see in movies. Because apparently, it is real!

My name is Alyssia and I am a nineteen-year-old second year student. I do an interdepartmental major in Psychology, Cognitive Science and Life Sciences.