EducationUSA Competitive College Club (CCC) Macedonia

On June 30th 2016, the American Corner Bitola, as part of the 2016 EducationUSA Competitive College Club Bitola, organized Book Club meeting led by Mr. Charles McKinney, local Peace Corps Volunteer.  The book selected for this session was "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. The book addresses a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.  A broad discussion about the characters of the book and their lives started and the participants were detecting the main messages and related the life story of each character to the moral concept and the problems of racial inequality in the past.

On June 29th Competitive College Club (CCC) Bitola meeting was focused on the process of school selection, most helpful resources on school selection and what works best in practice. The presentation included the important criteria for school selection such as department’s description of its undergraduate education, the academic calendar, retention and graduation rates, diversity and acceptance rate besides the more obvious factors such as location, types of colleges, housing, rankings, GPA and test scores.  It also referred to the EducationUSA website, College Board, Collegeweeklive, and some other useful online articles and resources. Then followed a small group work on self-assessment documents where CCC Bitola students read through real student college lists and were asked to approve them according to the information provided by the students.  The two hour sessions also included conversation on understanding financial aid for international students and the realities of

on June 30th, YES abroad student in Macedonia, Brendan Schultz, visited the American Corner Bitola for a very interactive presentation/discussion with the CCC Bitola students on his recent college application experience in the U.S. Throughout the hour and a half session, Brenadan was kind enough to offer very useful advice and tips on many aspects of the college application process in the U.S. especially on how CCC students could build their college lists more effectively and what factors are important when choosing a school in the U.S.  Brendan has been in Macedonia for nine months as a current student at Nova high school and a YES Abroad student. Born in the beautiful state of Hawaii, Brendan grew up in a military family, which has given him the opportunity to live in four U.S. states: Hawaii, Virginia, Washington State, and Connecticut. Brendan became a youth activist from a young age when he started attending war protests. In politics, Brendan has worked on Barack Obama’

On June 2nd 2016, the American Corner Bitola, as part of the 2016 EducationUSA Competitive College Club Bitola, organized Book Club meeting led by Mr. Charles McKinney, local Peace Corps Volunteer.  The book selected for this session was “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer . The book addresses the issues of how to be accepted into society, and how finding oneself sometimes conflicts with being an active member in society. Most critics agree that the main character left to find some sort of enlightenment. He also tries to find his way in the wild with as little material possessions because "it made the journey more enjoyable". His extreme risk-taking was the hubris which eventually led to his downfall. This book is great for discussion and sharing ideas, because it has deeper meaning in the text with the "revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience".