Interview: Dino Dacanay, from Philippines

This weekend I'v interviewed  Dino Dacanay, from Philippines who is studying first year of advertising at UNAV. His full name is Alan Adrian A. Dacanay Jr and he is 20, but everyone calls him Dino. I thought it would be interesting to know the experiences of a student that came from so far away and know his first impression of studying abroad.


1.Why did you chose to come to UNAV?

-Ever since high school, I have always dreamed of studying abroad. When I found out that UNAV offered one of the best courses in communications, I had no hesitations in studying here. So next year, I will be transferring from my university in the Philippines to UNAV.

2.And how did you find out unav?

-I studied in an Opus Dei private school in the Philippines. My school entertained a representative from UNAV and they talked about UNAV to us.

3.What are your first impressions in these 2 months at unav?

-My first impressions would be that I was amazed with the diversity of people who study here and the fact that it is similar in some ways to my university in the Philippines.

4.Have you had any shock with the difference between philippines and pamplona? Is there anything you don't like?

 

-There was not much shock because I took my first 2 years of college in the Philippines so transition from High School to College was not that bad. At the same time culture wise, there was not much shock since I have been to UNAV more than 8 times in the past 3 years to visit my brother. So I am accustomed to the way of life here already.

5.What do you like the most about university? And about Pamplona?

-It's bigger compared to my university in the Philippines and there are a lot of people who come from different social and cultural backgrounds. what I love about pamplona is how everything is in walking distance.


6.What do you miss the most? (if you miss anything)

- I miss home cooked food by my mom. She makes the meanest Adobo (shredded fried pork). No one can ever make them as good as my mom makes them. I also miss my family as well as all my friends back home.


7.Would you recommend this experience to other students?

-Definitely. It's a chance for everyone to meet people from different countries as well as a chance for them to become more open minded about different things such as religion, cultural differences, etc.

Podcasts and videoblogs

Today our blog is going to be focused on the searching of podcasts and videoblogs made by international students as it is a way of sharing with other people and  other students their experiences at a foreign university in a closer way.


The NUFS Podcast is the international ESL podcast made by English students in Japan, for English students everywhere.On this site you will be able to hear student interviews and opinions on interesting topics and issues. It is also interesting that  the NUFS Podcast is written, performed and produced by students of the Department of British and American Studies at NUFS, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, in Central Japan anan d that is what makes it more valuable as well as you are totally free to hear any podcast without paying any money.



Another page I've found is the official site of Stockholm University where there is a space dedicated to the  foreign students that are studying there. So in order to get to know a little bit more their exchange students,they decided to make this podcast called "Special audio podcast: meet our exchange students,Spring 2010 " which is free to listen to.




The first videoblog I've found is one made by Jaremie, an american student who started a 11-month foreign exchange journey to Japan. He tells people through the videos he have made how is his life in that country, how is his daily routine and he also tries to show everyone the thing that have surprised him the most about a very different culture and country like Japan.




The second videoblog is about a man called Tyler Swain who is in his first year at Wofford College and through his videoblog "Wofford First Year Experience" he tells his experiences at university based on the videos he upload as well as an explanation of these videos. He explains his own experience about his new life on the campus, and his trips to different places and also the different activities of the university and he tries to show the atmosphere of university life.

Related podcasts and videoblogs

How can we best know about an international student experience in a foreing country? The search I've done today is to find some podcasts and videoblogs made by international students.


The first podcast I've found is SIELI international student podcast. SIELI stands for: Summer Intensive English Language Institute, it is an eight-week intensive English language program. This summer language institute is located at Columbia College in Chicago. The description of this podcast in the itunes web is: "This podcast is produced by the international students at Columbia College Chicago's Summer Intensive English Language Institute (SIELI), where they share their experiences from their home countries as well as their impressions of life in Chicago". We can listen to the podcasts just clicking "play" and it is free. There is also a link to the podcast website.


Another interesting podcast is in the CNN website: CNN Student News. CNN Student News is a ten-minute daily news program produced by the journalists and educators at CNN, it is an award-winning program. You can see the show as a streamed video on CNN Student News website (CNNStudentNews.com), or download it as a free podcast. The program is free and accessible to anyone who wants to watch; there are no subscription charges or contracts to complete.


This is not a videoblog (Unruly Media) about international students but I think it is an interesting videoblog for students who are interested in marketing or advertising. Unruly Media is the world's leading exponent of viral video marketing. Every day, Unruly Media helps global agencies promote viral videos, movie trailers, web shows, cool TV ads, and other forms of branded entertainment on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, influential blogs, cult websites, and social media applications. It helps agencies and marketers distribute branded content on the social web. Unruly Media has bought, earned, and audited over a billion user-intended views across more than six hundred video campaigns since 2006. In each post, Unruly Media uploads a video with different adversiting campaings. 


First Year Experience is a blog where five first-year students at Woffor College (in the USA) share their different experiences. We have Tayler Swain's videoblog, where he shares his experinces at university, for example, he talks about baseball at university in a video. As he was in France during Wofford's January Interim, there are also videos from his trip to France. 

about Costa Rica

Costa Rica is situated between Nicaragua to the north and Panamá to the south in the American continent, it has a population of about 4.516.220 inhabitants , their coin is “colón” and their flag includes red, blue and white and also the national shield.

Costa Rica is a very beautiful country which every place is surrounded by lots of vegetation and fantastic beaches, that's why it is known as a very touristic place as well as because of the nice weaher. There aren´t seasons, instead of that it rains for six months and it is sunny for another six months but it's always the same temperature. San José is the capital city of the country, where Natalia lives and works, she says that it is a city with a very good atmosphere due to the fact that there is the university so it is full of young people. If you go to Costa Rica you can't come back without had seen Arenal volcano which is one of the most active volcanos in the country, as well as visit the well-known paradisical beaches in the coast of Costa Rica. It's also interesting for those who like nature to visit some of the huge variety of natural parks as the Tortuguero National park or Cabo Blanco National park. There it can be possible to see a lot of different species of animals and exotic vegetation. The most typical dish of Costa Rica is called Pollo Casado and it has nothing special, in fact, it is quite plain, it contains as main ingredients rice, beans, fried plaintains and some meat it can be chicken, fish or beef seasoned with lemon and pepper. Most Costa Rican cuisine is like this, good and cheap as the Gallo pinto that contains “frijoles” akind of beans, and rice.

Natalia Salas - Costa Rica

Natalia Salas is an student of advertising at the University of Navarra, she is 21 years old. Six years ago she hear about a program for international students to study advertising in UNAV.
Her parents told her to study in her country, so she decided to began studing social science focused with policies and international relations in the URC ( Universidad de Costa Rica). At the same time she began studying photography at the Universidad creativa de Costa Rica. It was three years.
Two years after starting to studing she leave the career of social sciences and she devoted exclusively to photography.

Before ending the three year of photography, she aply to the UNAV to fulfill her dream, to study advertising here. This last august she finished photography so she was so happy because she knew that she would go to Navarra.

She speaks five languages, English and Spanish because is the language of Costa Rica; Italian because she had been living  there for six months and then she has continued studying it in her country; she also speaks German, because she studied in Costa Rica for four years; to finish the last language she speaks is the Portuguese, she spent six months there and when she returned to Costa Rica, in the consulate of Brazil she did an exam to remove the title “conocimiento de la lengua Portuguesa”

On holidays she loved working in a school for little children with an education calling “montesori” and she worked there with autistic children and with the ausperger syndrome.

While she was studying photography came up with the possibility of working as a model for some friends. As a result of this work she was offered for a job in the shop “day a day” as publicist. She worked too with a Costa Rica designer, Ana Gutierrez.

Natalia: present photographer, future publicist

In this week's post we are going to talk about Natalia Salas Aragón, from Costa Rica, who is studying advertising at the UNAV. I'm going to write about her career as a photographer, which I think is a very interesting aspect of her life.


Natalia studied photography in Costa Rica at the Universidad Creativa de Costa Rica (here you have an UCreativa ad), from 2008 and she finished in 2010 (just before coming to Navarra). The main reason why she studied photography is that it is very related to advertising. She dreamed for 6 years (since she knew about the University) of coming to the UNAV to study advertising.

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón
This is a picture taken by Natalia for her subject at university: advertising photography

However, despite de fact that she wanted to study advertising in Navarra, she enjoyed her studies in photography. What she liked the most about photography was her subject "advertising photography" because she did things related to the world of advertising. Natalia worked for the shop Dayaday in Costa Rica. This work appeared because Natalia had a subject at university called "product photography" in which she had to take three photos to create and ad for a brand. The fact is that she chose a handbag from Dayaday. She designed the ad and selected two girls to act as models for her. When she had the final photos, she thought that they weren't perfect, the models didn't represent the idea of what Natalia wanted to show in the photos. So, Natalia took herself a picture with the handbag. Her teacher thought it was perfect and told Natalia that she should take the picture to Dayaday. The brand loved the photo and they bought it. The photo spread all over the country. Since that moment a lot of work opportunities came out, for example, the opportunity to work with Ana Gutiérrez's jewellery. Ana Gutiérrez is a famous jewellery designer from Costa Rica who designed the jewels which were given in the Oscar Awards.

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón
This is one of the photos rejected for the Dayaday campaign

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón
This is the photo Natalia sold to Dayaday

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón
Jewels from Ana Gutiérrez

Natalia also worked as a model for her photography partners at university. These photos were published in her university's web.

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón.
This is one of the photos Natalia's partners took her

Image rights: Natalia Salas Aragón

After 6 years, Natalia is fulfilling her dream. She is here, in Navarra, studying what she always wanted to study . But, of course, her photography studies will be very useful for her. After all, as we can see, she has never wasted her time.

International students

This week I've been looking for some blogs that might inspire us to do ours.
I found one of the Francisco de Vitoria University, is a meeting point for all international students who want to keep in touch with the university. A place where they can meet and tell their story to those who wish to come to study with them.

At this university to follow the traditions on December the 12 they celebrate America's day, as the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. Stands found of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Peru and Europe. All managed to collect a bit of Latin America in the cafe of UFV
http://alumnosinternacionalesufv.blogspot.com/


More and more international students are choosing Spain as a destination for their studies. For them is a country that is in fashion.



The second blog i have found is of a journalist, a professor of Political Communication Villanueva University Centre (affiliated to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and contributor to the Journal Dosdoce.com and New Cultural Magazine of Politics, Culture and Art. he told us that for the fifth consecutive year, Spain is the most demanded by students who choose to benefit from the Erasmus Programme to continue their university studies in another European country. Including a large majority of Italians, French, German and British. Spanish students algo go abroad, although it is Germany who sends more students abroad. The destinations for the Spanish are Italy, France, UK and Germany.
video of some erasmus students
Felipe Santos on Public Diplomacy


Carmen Guitián