senior program summer site : conversations : first session



	roxane from france (7/18) Roxane is a rising sophomore from France and she’s here at Explo for her first summer. She loves marketing, advertising, and fashion. She also appreciates the international feel of Explo. What is your first course and how has it been going? My first course is advertising and marketing. We have been studying commercials, saying if they are bad, good, or over the top. How you can advertise your product, the different ways, logos and such. We each had a product that we had to advertise to all the students at Explo. We had sheets and everyone had to sign them. For our final presentations we had to present the products and say how we were going to advertise them. We also learned about public speaking and the way you can talk about your product. And how to write a news release for your product. A lot of stuff actually. What was your product? My product was a slipware. Its slippers that you wear that make you sleep, they are not dangerous [laughs]. They are actually new, you just put them on and there’s an on/off button and remote control that allows you to choose how many minutes you want before you go to bed. It’s mainly for people suffering from insomnia, but also for people who just want to have a good nights sleep. Interesting. Would you buy these slippers? I don’t know. I think so. How did the people feel whom you advertised it to? They were happy because a lot of people have difficulty sleeping. Especially if you come home from a great night or if you are really excited for the next day and you don’t want to go to bed, it allows you to get a good night's sleep. What about your second course? My second course is fashion redesign. The first week we designed our own belt, which is pretty awesome. The second week we designed our own bags. The third week we redesigned a t-shirt. So you had a taste of fashion and advertising, which was your favorite? They are really two totally different things. Advertising and marketing might be something I would like to do in the future as a job, so it’s really interesting to learn about it and my teacher was really good. The whole class was just fun. The fashion redesign course was really awesome, too. I love fashion and I love clothes, so being able to design my own stuff was pretty fun. I think it’s a tie though. What was your first mini-course? My first mini-course was newspaper column writing. We wrote an article about cultural differences, the stereotypes of Americans and Europeans . . . there’s a certain way that Europeans see Americans and a different way that Americans see Europeans. What are some of the stereotypes? Some people say the French are rude, and that’s based on personal experiences, and not completely true. And a stereotype of Americans – and this is not true at all – is that all Americans are fat. How did you go about your research for the article? We discussed them and interviewed a lot of people from all over the world. We ended the article by saying how stereotypes aren’t true and that you should judge people by knowing them and not by the country they are from. What advice would you give an international student coming to Explo for the first time? Be careful of they way you greet people and say hello, the ways to greet people and say hello are different in every single country. The American way and European way are completely different. Do you find it at all difficult to make friends? No, it’s summer so everyone is more relaxed. Everyone is more friendly and happy, so it’s much easier to bond with people. You can walk up to someone, like, in the quad or wherever and just start talking to him or her and have a conversation. What is your favorite thing about your living group? My RA’s! And my entire living group is really close. Have you been encouraged to try something new at Explo? Rugby. And having to take care of myself completely. You are independent for three weeks here, which is pretty cool. It’s a good feeling to have. If Explo was an object what would it be and why? Hmmn . . . it would be a smoothie maker, because in a smoothie you put all different kinds of fruit, and we are all different people from different countries that were put in the same place. We are in the same jar, all mixed together. Like I have friends from Peru, Panama, France, China, Hong Kong, it’s so international. more conversations > first session \| second session