Dunja Kreidl, our module C student from the second year of the Faculty of Education, did a very interesting interview with Grace Penta, 24-year-old English teaching assistant at our faculty.
1)Can you tell us something about yourself?
- I am the older sister in my family. I really like to sail. I like to play other sports as well but sailing is my favorite. My favorite dessert is brownies and my favorite food is oatmeal.
2)Which University have you graduated from?
- I graduated from the University of Chicago in 2021 and I studied public policy.
3)What brings you to Osijek?
- I am in Osijek as English teaching assistant as you know. I am here through a program called Fulbright and that’s kind of a 9-month exchange program. I am in Osijek specifically because Fulbright and the US embassy have a good relationship with University, but I chose Croatia because of couple of reasons. One of them was immediately Literacy Days campaign that they have across the country. I was really interested in that.
4)Would you like to stay here longer and why?
- I would like to stay here longer. I feel like nine months is not enough time to explore all of Croatia and the whole Europe in general. It is close to other places that I’d like to travel and just more time. Osijek is a really pleasant place to live, you know, and I got to be here at fall, through winter and in the spring, but I want the summer too.
5)Now, when you explored the Faculty of Education, could you tell us some differences between our faculty and faculties in the US?
- That is interesting… One is just a name; we do not really call it “faculty”. “Faculty” here means the subject area. “Faculty” in the US means people that work at the school, like professors and teachers and assistant professors, those are the faculty members. I think there are more similarities than there are differences. Faculties here are smaller and more specific. At university that I went is all of public policy, which is a bunch of different types of policy. When here, you have like right next door is tech and computer science. It is very specific.
6)What is your opinion on our educational system?
- I think it is good from everything I have seen. It has a lot of similarities and differences with the US. I think the most interesting difference is that I learned about is how in the US a first grade teachers are always a first grade teachers, second grade always second, third grade always third grade…But in Croatia if you are a first grade teacher, you move next year to second and next year to third and next year to forth. That does not happen in the US and I have not even considered that it could be done that way.
That is a huge difference too – a free education through college. I think that is a huge plus. I think that the US should do that. That is a fantastic idea.
7)What is one part of Croatian culture that you would like to share with Americans?
- The soccer culture; you got some strong, strong soccer fans. Today is the game, yees! Burek should definitely be shared with the US. I like the US coffee culture like carry on coffee, but I like the idea of here, sitting down and having long conversations – that doesn’t happen very often in the US. It is very common here. That culture should definitely be carried over. I think people also here… in an article that I read for a class it was talking about how in Croatia when you meet someone new you do not ask them right away what do you do. You ask them like where you are from and it is trying to get more personal aspect of who you are. In the US we focus more on what someone’s job is, what they do for work and that is a lot of who they are, but in Croatia you are more than that and I like that.
8)You told us that your family currently lives in Japan, have you lived there too?
- Yes. This is my family’s second time living in Japan. We lived there when I was younger, when I was in preschool age and then we moved to basically California afterwards. So, I lived there when I was younger for 3 years. I visited 2 years ago to see my family and I will be going back in a couple of days for Christmas.
9)How did moving around impact you?
- I think overall it had a positive impact. I think it allowed me to see a lot of different ways of living, people are very different even across just the US. I think I had a brought perspective abroad view. I think it has also allowed me to learn how to be adaptable and change my environment and how to be independent; to start over in a new place, like feel comfortable and try new things. Those are some of the ways, there are probably a lot of impacts.
10)Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are you wishes for the future?
- I would like to be traveling probably. I would like to be working in a way that allows me to travel and to be doing beneficial work that impacts people possibly beyond myself. I do not know if that would be in Croatia but somewhere around the world. Like to get out of the US for longer.
Thank you very much for this interview.
- Thank you.
Dunja Kreidl
December 13, 2022