Reflection by Thitichaya Rattanasrithong ID: 1356704
Studying abroad must be difficult, but at the same time, it is a great opportunity for a girl like me who has never experienced any sorts of this challenging journey at home before. An opportunity to get to know more about people, an opportunity to speak out loud in other languages, an opportunity to learn and understand how people from other countries think of and lastly, a gigantic opportunity to be adaptable in a whole new world. I was personally born in Thailand and had never ever left my country this far away. Literally, I was asked many times why I decided to come to Austria and study at Johannes Kepler University Linz(JKU). At that time, I honestly didnʼt know WHY. It was 50:50 percent chances mixed of coincident and intention. But now, it has been 1 month passed by, I have got an answer for them. Coming this far away is one of the best thing in my life. My heart was beating fast and my hand was shaking. That was the first feeling I could remember after entering the room full of crowd. That was the first day of the training session, I remembered that I was so nervous, because I was all by myself. The other 2 Thai friends of mine decided not to participate, that was one of the reasons why I was more frustrated. But, that was going to be fine, I was thinking inside my head. I could not believe that there were so many people coming from around 30-40 different countries, which was incredible. Maybe, it was even more than that if including all students at JKU. I was skyping back to my home every single days, and I told my parent that JKU was like an education center that assembled students from all over the world. After the first day passed by, I felt no shame at all of taking this session. I loved every moment. I was so impressed by each and every activities that were provided. I felt more confident, relax and independent that I had never felt before. The second day, as a group, we were assigned to go interviewing one or more local people at St. Magdelena. It was not so far from a place where we lived. We started a journey by meeting at the lobby around 10.00, and then we walked to a tram station. After getting out of a tram at St. Magdelena, we walked across the street up to a terrify steep ascent. That slope, almost 45°, was killing me. It brought back a memory of my latest hiking in Thailand. Fortunately, we came across it. Up there, everywhere was so clean and quiet. There was no people to be found along the street. We were searching around for about 15 minutes and then decided to just go straight to one of a truck driver. At the end, we got everything we needed; his personal information, attitude and a photograph. We

went back to the dormitory and agreed to make a poster right after getting back, because we didnʼt want to be in rush in the next morning. It was 12.00, we gathered around the dinning table in a common kitchen. Everyone brought generous amount of their own snack in order to share them together. We helped each other writing everything down, drawing and painting. It finished so soon, because we were not hesitating at all. And the poster came out very colorful and beautiful. Cultural Sensitivity Training gave me numerous benefits as listed below: Firstly, I was enlightened by local people of how they thought about their town and country. Practically, there were many virtual aspects of attitude to be reflected. But I was not going to list them all here, because it was going to be too boring. Moreover, in the last day of class, we all discussed on varied culture, tradition and citizenʼs life styles amongst different countries. As far as I was concerned, I could tell that Austrians were so proud of their country and very generous to tourists. Secondly, we were assigned to work as a team. I was in a team included with one girl from the Czech Republic, Katerina, one guy from Slovakia, Matej and another guy from Taiwan, Hao. I found that the method of gathering people from different nationalities was an excellent idea, otherwise, they were going to hang around with same people who were from the same country like a proverb saying that “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”. In addition, working as a team empowered the effectiveness of work. But how did I know that this was working? Unbelievably, I was once a shy and unconfident student when presenting in front of classes, but here, not for once I felt uncomfortable, because we were very well-prepared and woking flowingly together. Believe it or not, from the first day, we were like a stranger to each other's eyes, but after 3 days of collaborating, we were now friends. Lastly, I knew to myself that everything was possible if you gave yourself into. I could break every wall of dependency, indecision and arrogance. I thought that I achieved whatever this session aimed for. To give and to take. To live and to learn. To honor and to be respected. To share and to care.

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by Thitichaya Rattanasrithong ID: 1356704