Short Study Tour to Jutland, Denmark

Dearest readers,

I have had a fabulous weekend while traveling to Jutland. It was an educational experience but a pleasurable one. I wont waste anymore space!

A short study tour is part of the DIS experience while studying abroad. Each discipline has a specific location throughout Denmark. For Psychology, we traveled to Jutland. For those of you whom I haven't spoken to, study tours are a chance for me to compare my American Psychology skills to the Danes way of studying Psychology. I traveled with my Psychology of Happiness class (class size= 32) all the way to Esberg. Here we stopped at a small business school where the "S-Project" is well known. The "S-Project" is a "skills project" or program for under privileged students. Many of these students have had bad childhoods, bullied by classmates, or just did not fit into, what I would call, a, "normal", high school. After hearing some of the students' stories about their life, my classmates and I learned about a typical day in school for them. The students gather as a family for breakfast every morning (for many can not afford breakfast) and take specific classes towards mental and physical health. Therefore these 24 students take classes such as: gym, personal reflection, general courses (found in most high schools), and more. They are all in the same class which is located within an average high school. However, they have a special hall for this program. A staff of professional psychologists and high school teachers run an eight week program that encourages the students to progress towards their academic career while improving their health (physically/mentally/emotionally). As I listened to the lectures on how the psychologists improve one's self-esteem, character strengths, and trust in these individuals; I couldn't help but think about how positive my life has been.

After the lectures, I had to have a one on one intervention with one of the students in the "S-Project". I had to talk about how the program could be improved and what my thoughts were. Although I was quite nervous for my first Psychological intervention, the Danish student I was talking with lightened up the room by asking the interpreter, how my teeth are so white! :)

After finishing with the students we headed for our hostel. Believe it or not it was a clean and beautiful hostel. I bunked with three other girls who I have been getting quite close with. Throughout the trip I really bonded with them (and we are going shopping tomorrow!). The next morning we traveled to Arhos. This is the second largest city in Denmark. Here we visited an art museum! Although I am not to fond of art, the museum was fascinating! I enjoyed all of the different forms of "art". I never thought art could be so interesting. Guess you learn something new every day huh? After the art museum, we again had an academic portion of the trip. We traveled to a unique school called the Kaospilots. This is a three year school which focuses on "finding yourself and your inner strengths, while applying that into leadership and academic excellence". The two speakers, whom were former students, took us on a "journey" of our trip in Denmark. With personal reflection, group therapy, and interventions on what we wanted throughout our time abroad; my class seemed to be bonding well and I had goals set for myself regarding my time here. It was fairly easy to see how Positive Psychology was used within this academic portion of the trip. Therefore my paper, which is due tomorrow, was easy to finish.

Finally, we had a night on the town to ourselves. The girls and I wasted no time and went shopping, had pizza/beer, and met up with a 100 other DIS students at a local bar. Dancing to Aqua and chatting about our study tours made the time fly by. Before I knew it, we were on our way to our last stop. That following morning, we headed to a small town called Roskilde to visit the Viking Ship Museum. I had a blast dressing up in old clothes and taking pictures inside the boats. Overall, the experience was great. I bonded with friends, got to know my classmates, had a chance to personally reflect on my ambitions throughout the trip, met wonderful Danes, and had a great night out.

But, weekend doesn't end there. When I got back Saturday night, I was so exhausted. However, my friends pulled me out to the Scottish Bar. We had a few drinks and walked along Stroget with hot chocolate. After admiring the shops, we planned a day to pull out our credit cards--tomorrow!! :)

Sunday was a bit more relaxing for I was able to do laundry and catch up on work. The night ended perfectly with hamburgers and fries for dinner! In addition, I took another step further into being a member of the Klausen family. I helped my younger host sister with her English fantasy paper. I was very impressed with her English skills and loved how her characters were Bella, Edward, and Jacob. After reviewing her paper, we played Wii with her brother. Yes, I lost again. We even tried to play another game--bummer. To finish the night of perfectly, we all, as a family, watched Night at the Museum. AND it was in English :)

So much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to.

Love from Denmark to you,

Chelsea