[Week 1] From Arrival to Adventures

by Yoonju Gal

I can’t believe it’s already been a week since I arrived in the U.S. It’s amazing how fast the week went by. The first day was tough because my flight was delayed due to a thunderstorm, but Clara comforted me. The first impression I got when I entered Newman Hall was that it felt incredibly cozy. I felt very welcomed. 

Barbara’s welcome party was very interesting. Meeting and introducing ourselves to the program associates made me excited to be with such passionate and great people.

The first day of the program. We all gathered at the cafeteria, took photos, and then entered the room where we will spend the most time over the this month. I think this place will feel like home after a month. The first session was the associates’ self-introductions. It was a time to get to know each other and their institutions better. The campus tour with Clara was even better thanks to the beautiful weather. The Main Quad was particularly beautiful. Seeing students sitting and relaxing, and playing with their dogs looked very peaceful. Also, there were a lot of squirrels on campus, and they were so cute.

In the afternoon, we did the DiSC assessment, which was connected to Shirley’s class the next day. I had done a similar MBTI personality test in Korea, but DiSC is more like a tool to understand personal behavior styles at work. I was an SC. Interestingly, everything mentioned in the assessment matched with me. This class was a good opportunity to understand my colleagues better. Sometimes, I couldn’t understand some of my colleagues’ behaviors, but through this class, I learned to understand their behaviors and how to deal with each personality type, which was very beneficial.

The best lecture this week was Dr. Kristen Mattson’s Media Literacy and Digital Citizenship class. In fact, we run similar programs at the National Library of Korea, but her class was much more structured and used various tools. Although the content was aimed at teenagers, it was also necessary for adults. Even I, who believed I had enough ability to discern fake news, realized that I actually believed a lot of fake news and lacked the skills to distinguish them. The resources she provided were very useful and will be helpful when developing media literacy classes for users in the future.

We visited many institutions this week, but the most impressive was the Urbana Free Library. It was a small library, but their Teen Open Lab for teenagers was very impressive. All the librarians working there were very passionate, and I could tell they truly cared about teens. They had a respectful attitude towards the teens, constantly trying to understand and meet their needs.

I am looking forward to next week!