Courses for this semester

ALUMNI INTERVIEW PROGRAM:
Before I get to the meat of the blog, just wanted to let everyone know that February is the last month of the Alumni Interview Program.  If you're a prospective masters student and are interested in an alumni interview, fill out the request form and submit your application and we'll try to match you with an alum for an interview.  All your materials must be in by the end of the month to be considered. 

Events for Admitted Students:

Online Events for Admitted Students:

Our current students host a series of themed webchats, speed chats, and a virtual preview event to offer you an inside look into life at Penn GSE. You're welcome to join as many as you like!

More detailed information please go to: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/node/1790



Now comes to the blog of this week. There isn't many exciting news about life so I will just talk about the courses that I have taken this semester.
Language and Gender: This is a very interesting course focused on the linguistic issue of genders. It introduces many important theoretical issues and methodological concerns in the language and gender area. The topic throughout the classes are how gender ideologies shape and are shaped by language use. It's very exciting to look at the gender issue from an academic way and this course allows me to relate my personal real life experience to the academic researches.
Sociolinguistics: It's a required course for Educational Linguistics students. It's mainly designed to provide students with an awareness to sociolinguistics as it pertains to educational issues, and to language teaching and learning more generally. It's a very thought-provoking class, which made me think about many educational issues in sociology contexts.
Apart from the above classes, I also took two marketing courses at Wharton:
Marketing Strategy: It's a case-based course about marketing activities to some of the key strategic decision. As an ICC student, i find a lot of intercultural issues in this class as well. The cases are very helpful to get a sense of marketing and strategic planning.
Strategic Brand Management: It's also a case-based course about marketing, especially the branding issues. It introduces the basic strategies in building a strong brand, and some underlying theories. The course has involved many famous brands that everyone knows, which makes the class very interactive and interesting.

First Super Bowl ever!

Since football is not so popular in China, I haven't got chance to watch any football games before I came to U.S. I am not a sports fan but I feel that Super Bowl is conveyed with more than simply sports to Americans so I decide to watch it to be engaged more with the American culture.
Before the game, I studied a little bit about the rules of the football and the background information about the two teams that's going to compete. It's a little bit hard for me to watch a sports game if I'm not sure which team should I support. So I asked a few friends and searched online. It seems that football is sports game that's requiring a lot about the teamwork and cooperation, a lot more than basketball or soccer. The rules are complicated to me as a newcomer, but it's also fun to learn by watching.
Another thing that i have learned about the Super Bowl is that the Super Bowl is the most watched program in U.S. so the commercial ads during the Super Bowl is a great enjoyment other than the game itself. It's supposed to be the most expensive ads on TV. So I paid a lot of attention to the ads and I really enjoyed some of them, such as the Doritos and the Coke Cola ones and some trailers of the new movies. It's really interesting to look into the commercials because it's quite different from Chinese ones and there are a lot of intercultural issues in it.
The third thing that i really expected a lot before the game is the half-time show by Madonna. I'm not a big fan of her but the performance was awesome. It's hard to imagine a 50-year old woman to be so young and energetic. Also, I enjoyed the dance and performance by Nicki, Cee-lo as well.
It's the first time that I watch Super Bowl and I hope it's a good start to know more about American culture.