CEREN OCAK

 

My first year in the Learning, Design, and Technology program at the University of Georgia has been fruitful. First of all, I want to present my gratitude to each and every LDT faculty member for helping me to build a strong ground in the field of LDT. It has been priceless to be a member of the LDT family and I have been feeling privileged about the quality of education that I am receiving, which would let me step into the career that I desire as a researcher.

 

Coursework

 

In the first semester, I grew my hard skills with EDIT 8190- LDT Design Studio. In addition to that, developing an artifact from the scratch increased my self-esteem, which I would never think that I was capable of in the first place. The course was very well organized and Dr. Rieber is one of the great instructors who did a great job in the delivery of the content.

 

EDIT 9990-Foundations course helped me a lot to understand the basics of the LDT field. I am grateful to Dr. Hill for her continuous support, guidance, and in-depth knowledge that she has. I learnt how to be a critical thinker in EDIT-9990- Foundations course and all the feedbacks that I got from Dr. Hill always encouraged me to continue, particularly in the challenging moments. Besides, the EDIT 8990- Seminar course delivered by Dr. Hill and Dr. Choi has been a great opportunity to share our concerns as beginner researchers. I believe in the necessity of this course to decrease the level of anxiety in the case of getting off-track.

 

Last but not least, Dr. Kopcha is one of the best advisors that I could ever think of. He has always inspired me with his wisdom in the field. He has never hesitated to spend his hours with me on intellectual discussions, which has a significant role in how I manage to situate myself with my research interest. He has always given me lots of research opportunities and encouraged me in the moments that I struggled. I had many opportunities to develop my writing skills as well as analyzing and interpreting data sets in the field of Robotics.

 

Program Suggestions

 

The field of embodied cognition has turned out to be my desire to conduct my research in. However, in the program of LDT, there are not many relevant courses that I want to continue with in the field that I want to specialize. I would like to engage in research and development projects of a design laboratory that can connect neuroscience, embodied cognition, and STEM learning in tandem. Additionally, in the future, I would like to have more courses targeting hard skills in technology use.