My graduate school
This semester I took the PRT 5610/6610 Contemporary Issues in International Tourism, which is one of the most useful courses I have taken at the University of Utah. This course expanded my mind through
#1 Having me fulfill the requirements of the international general education.
We all picked our own topic concerning the cross-border phenomena influencing the international tourism system, my topic is Climate Change Impacts in Oceania. Through working on this topic on weebly, I identified how this issue can have an effect on tourism industry, the infograpgic I did recently also shows my concern to this problem and a call for action to everyone.
While working on my topic, I studied different perspectives to the climate change issue in Oceania. Most of the perspectives are regretful to how badly the climate change is influencing the tourism industry in Oceania. Oceania is a good tourism destination with rich natural resources, but climate change is causing the health problem of the tourists, damaging coastal scenes and beaches in Oceania and reducing the number of business days. We can see how vulnerable the tourism development can be there due to the climate change.
Thus, I realized the importance of sustainable tourism development, which means attempting to make as low an impact on the local environment and culture. It is a doubleaction thing, the climate change could impact on tourism resources, but if people develop tourism industry without protecting the environment, the climate situation can be worse, and thus effecting tourism development more. Things will turn into a vicious circle. So start from now with driving less, planting a tree in your back yard or replacing a regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent one, there are a lot to be discovered to be done that can greatly improve the global climate. The world needs your help!
#2 Having me fulfill the requirements of the upper division communication/writing requirement.
As a native Chinese speaker, I have been trying hard to improve my English writing and speaking skills. This course provided me with a chance of improving my English communication skills. The weekly assignment requires me to write different aspects of my topic which enables me to feel more comfortable and confident in writing, besides that, I was encouraged to read other student's blog, which enabled me to learn how other people write. When doing the blog evaluation for my peer, I got the chance of reading my peer's blog carefully, I learned a lot from her writing skill and felt amazed by her humor.
There was also a presentation happened, which improved my skill of communicating and cooperating with others. The topic was :Drug Trade Affecting Tourism". We had four people worked as a team for the presentation, at first, we communicated through ETHERPAD created by Dr. Linda S. Ralston, learned how to incorporate suggestions provided by team members. After communicating with my group members through ETHERPAD for a while, I found it an efficient tool for online communication, all the members can talk at anytime and all the other members would see the messages. After discussing things on ETHERPAD, we worked different parts for our paper, which enables me to practice my writing skill again,. When making the slideshows for our presentation, one of the group members Jared introduced me a new online slideshow maker called KIZOA, this was the first time I didn't make presentation through PowerPoint! It helped me to multiple forms of communication. The presentation to the peers adapted my speaking skill to my audience, I tried to speak professionally and deliver clear messages.
The last thing I would like to mention is effective technology skills I learned from the course. Dr. Linda Ralston taught us how to make beautiful infographics online, I would never thought of myself being able to make professional infographic if my instructor didn't ask me to do this. Click here to check out the infographic I made! Another impressing thing to me is Pinterest. I have never used it before, but Linda introduce us to it and helped us with adapting pin thing! All the good pictures there make pinterest a fun place and a relaxing way for social media, people's vision got stimulated by all those great images!
Love this course, great appreciation to my instructor Dr Linda. Ralston.
#1 Having me fulfill the requirements of the international general education.
We all picked our own topic concerning the cross-border phenomena influencing the international tourism system, my topic is Climate Change Impacts in Oceania. Through working on this topic on weebly, I identified how this issue can have an effect on tourism industry, the infograpgic I did recently also shows my concern to this problem and a call for action to everyone.
While working on my topic, I studied different perspectives to the climate change issue in Oceania. Most of the perspectives are regretful to how badly the climate change is influencing the tourism industry in Oceania. Oceania is a good tourism destination with rich natural resources, but climate change is causing the health problem of the tourists, damaging coastal scenes and beaches in Oceania and reducing the number of business days. We can see how vulnerable the tourism development can be there due to the climate change.
Thus, I realized the importance of sustainable tourism development, which means attempting to make as low an impact on the local environment and culture. It is a doubleaction thing, the climate change could impact on tourism resources, but if people develop tourism industry without protecting the environment, the climate situation can be worse, and thus effecting tourism development more. Things will turn into a vicious circle. So start from now with driving less, planting a tree in your back yard or replacing a regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent one, there are a lot to be discovered to be done that can greatly improve the global climate. The world needs your help!
#2 Having me fulfill the requirements of the upper division communication/writing requirement.
As a native Chinese speaker, I have been trying hard to improve my English writing and speaking skills. This course provided me with a chance of improving my English communication skills. The weekly assignment requires me to write different aspects of my topic which enables me to feel more comfortable and confident in writing, besides that, I was encouraged to read other student's blog, which enabled me to learn how other people write. When doing the blog evaluation for my peer, I got the chance of reading my peer's blog carefully, I learned a lot from her writing skill and felt amazed by her humor.
There was also a presentation happened, which improved my skill of communicating and cooperating with others. The topic was :Drug Trade Affecting Tourism". We had four people worked as a team for the presentation, at first, we communicated through ETHERPAD created by Dr. Linda S. Ralston, learned how to incorporate suggestions provided by team members. After communicating with my group members through ETHERPAD for a while, I found it an efficient tool for online communication, all the members can talk at anytime and all the other members would see the messages. After discussing things on ETHERPAD, we worked different parts for our paper, which enables me to practice my writing skill again,. When making the slideshows for our presentation, one of the group members Jared introduced me a new online slideshow maker called KIZOA, this was the first time I didn't make presentation through PowerPoint! It helped me to multiple forms of communication. The presentation to the peers adapted my speaking skill to my audience, I tried to speak professionally and deliver clear messages.
The last thing I would like to mention is effective technology skills I learned from the course. Dr. Linda Ralston taught us how to make beautiful infographics online, I would never thought of myself being able to make professional infographic if my instructor didn't ask me to do this. Click here to check out the infographic I made! Another impressing thing to me is Pinterest. I have never used it before, but Linda introduce us to it and helped us with adapting pin thing! All the good pictures there make pinterest a fun place and a relaxing way for social media, people's vision got stimulated by all those great images!
Love this course, great appreciation to my instructor Dr Linda. Ralston.
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