Psychology: East meets West

The UNYP psychology department was happy to welcome a delegation of the Psychology Faculty of Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, during their recent visit to Prague for a presentation on their psychology department activities. An interesting and informative presentation about their program also highlighted typical cultural aspects of education in Thailand. It was interesting to note that both our programs are structured around the same principles of a strong liberal arts education, and the content of the psychology courses seemed very similar. Differences appeared to be more cultural rather than curricular. For example, Thai culture has a much more integrated approach to students’ well-being, some lessons we could take for our own institutional development, but not just for the students, the Thai’s annual teacher appreciation day is also something faculty here might appreciate. A more detailed description of the cultural aspects of education in Thailand can be found at this link. It was of particular interest to the visiting scholars that one of our own Thai psychology students, Choochao Saenkaew, is conducting research on Thai immigrant integration in the Czech Republic for his senior thesis. UNYP looks forward to future professional cooperation between our institutions.