Psychology at MRU and abroad

A lot of universities in Lithuania, such as Vilnius University, Mykolas Romeris university, offers people to study psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and mental functioning. I will try to compare Mykolas Romeris University, the university I am studying in, and University of Kent.

Mykolas Romeris University is a modern and dynamic institution seeking to have a well-established position in European higher education. Faculty of Social Policy provides students a Bachelor's degree in psychology and also provides Master's degree in such branches as a Social psychology, Law psychology and Business psychology.

The Department of Psychology at the University of Kent in Great Britain has established itself as a leading centre of research and teaching in theoretical and applied psychology and has a commitment to excellence in scientific research with a concern for problems of contemporary relevance. The Department of Psychology offers a Bachelor's degree in Psychology or Social psychology and also offers a Master's degree in many branches, such as Cognitive psychology, Forensic psychology, etc.

To sum up, there are some differences and some similarities between Mykolas Romeris University and University of Kent, but the purpose is the same - to train the high level specialists who will help people to cope with problems and to make their life better.

references: www.mruni.lt
http://www.kent.ac.uk/contact/

Average happiness

Happiness is the thing, which makes our life bright and colourful. Some people want to have a lot of money, some want to become a great artists, but everyone wants to be happy. Dutch sociologist Ruut Veenhoven by his researches found out that people are not equally happy. So what is the level of happiness for an average human being in my home country, Lithuania?

As a shame, Lithuania is on the bottom of the Ruut Veenhoven's list. I think, the 85th place of 95 countries is not a good result, but it is true. That is why Lithuania is the leader in European Union by suicides. I am not good in politics and ecomonics, but I don't think that someone will be happy, when the food and living prices in his country are growing up, and salaries standstill.

Of course, the main thing that makes people feel happy are not money or other worldly goods, but I think, that person could not be completely happy when he is poor and have nothing to eat.

In my opinion, there are still many things to change in Lithuania. Politicians should stop stealing the money from the government and start improving the situation in the country. Citizens should get humanity and try to respect people around them. Then the level of average happiness in the country will increase and people will enjoy living.

references: http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_nat/nat_fp.php http://www.persuasive.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/happiness.jpg

Learning Languages

Have you ever thought how language is important in our life? Every day we use it for different reasons in different situations. But how to improve language skills?

If we speak about native language, there is no problem with learning it in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools. Teachers in school teaches children how to speak fluently, clearly and correctly so until the adolescence person will speak his native language very well. But what about foreign language?

Of course, if there is an opportunity, person should take a basics of foreign language, for example English, in school. Second step could be an university, where person will learn an ESP (English for special purposes). But I think there are some more additional ways how to improve language, such as watching English movies and listening English songs.

But the most useful thing in learning English is going abroad, if it is possible, in England. Using foreign language in everyday life in the country where everyone speaks this language will give a great result.

To sum up, every person should pay attention to his language, because language is a very essential part of our everyday life.

Self-assessment of success in learning ESP

Writing a summary

Writing a summary is a new thing for me, it was quite hard at the beginning with it, but now it is definitely easer to write it for me.

Writing comprehension tests on module in Psychology.

Writing comprehension tests is not difficult for me as I guess for everyone if the person preparing for this type of work at home, I mean if the person is repeating and learning definitions before the classes.

Making Power Point presentation

I thought that it would be very difficult and stressful for me but I was surprised that I really enjoyed to present it to the listeners because I saw they were interested in my presentation and getting a new useful things as well.

Impromptu speaking in class

This type of work is quite interesting but also difficult thing for me, I think I should improve my speech, to speak more clearly and to be less nervous while speaking.

Performance in listening practice

I thought that listening practice would be easy, but now I see that listening is quite difficult and hard to improve, but I hope that I will do my best to do it.

Writing contributions to E-Portfolio (Weblog)

I enjoied that type of work, however I should improve my grammar to make less mistakes in my essays, which I should upload to my Weblog.

Learning ESP

ESP means English for Specific Purposes. It is not the same thing as we learned at school. English for Specific Purposes is more advanced but otherwise more exciting thing. Here are some ways how I am learning and improving it.

At the begining it was very hard to read ESP texts because of lots specific and professional words used there, so I took a coursebook "Introduction to Psychology" by Linda L. Davidoff from university's library and downloaded a Lithuanian-English dictionary to my laptop. Now if I can not understand any word or phrase I am just opening a coursebook or dictionary and figuring out what it means.

Moreover, the ESP classes helps me to improve my pronunciation and speech. I am trying not to miss lectures and prepare homework as well. Now I am feeling much more better than in the begining of a semester.

To sum up, I hope that in the near future my ESP will become much more better by using an above-named methods.


References:
http://www.usnationalslaverymuseum.org/images/learningCenter.jpg

Analytical summary of "Introduction to psychology"

Robert S. Feldman is the author of "Understanding psychology". In the first chapter called "Introduction to psychology" author explains what is psychology, what are the subfields of it, in what ranges psychologists works and what are the key issues and controversies of it.

In the first module called "Psychologists at work" the author writes about variety of fields of psychology, such as social, cognitive, evolutionary, etc. Moreover, Feldman emphasizes that after graduation psychologists are employed in a variety of ranges, so they can work in school, offices, social areas.

In the second module called "A science evolves: the past, the present, and the future" Robert S. Feldman writes about people, who became famous by their inventions in psychology, a place of women in this science and also about perspectives of psychology.

The third module "Psychology's key issues and controversies" is about the problems of psychology, issues and controversies such as free will versus determinism and so on. Author also writes how to distinguish the qualified psychologists from pseudopsychologists.

To sum up, these three modules gives a basic understanding about what psychology is and what essentials of this science reader must know.

Psychology of success

Nearly everyone right-minded person in the world wants to be happy and succeed. But everyone understands this definition on his own way. For one person to succeed in life means to buy a car and build a big house, for second - to get respect from his colleagues in the work. But does the feelings (love, sympathy) make any sense here? Let's see.

There are persons in the world, called workaholics. They spend bigger part of their lives trying to get a better social status, become a better specialists in their range. These people should pay more attention on their personal lives, because I think that money and social status are just imitation of success, surely there are things in the world, which are invaluable. These things are love, emotions, strong feelings, etc.

The main component of success is health. No one will be really succeed and happy without it. Person can be rich and provided, but without health he will not be happy, because some illnesses like AIDS, cancer are incurable.

As far as I am concerned, for a while I am giving the pas for studies and sport activities, because at that age I need to achieve a good results in university, and as far as it possible to become a better sportsman. In the future I hope that I will find an interesting highly-paid job, a person to create a family and to fall in love with. I hope that these things will make me feel comprehensively succeed.