Exchange students explore “new worlds” at Worlds of Fun

The Office of International Education took 51 students to Worlds of Fun August 30. The trip allowed students to experience a new place and the American tradition of theme parks in the company of their friends.

“Many international students, especially in early in the semester, don’t know very many domestic students,” said Philip Coleman Hull, director for study abroad. “So getting out of town can be very difficult for them.”

The Worlds of Fun event was an attempt by the Office of International Education to give the students something to do during Labor Day weekend. The event was widely attended by international students from several countries and it provided the students with an opportunity to experience a part of regional and national culture.

“It was definitely worth going,” said Antti Kuoppala, senior international management major from Finland. “The weather was good and we rode a lot of different rides.”

For many of the students, the trip to Worlds of Fun was their first time in a theme park and their first opportunity to ride a roller coaster.

“We have theme parks in Finland, but not nearly as big,” Kuoppala said. “They don’t have anything like The Mamba.”

Some students were overwhelmed by the roller coasters and stuck to less thrilling rides.

“I was very scared of some of the roller coasters, so I didn’t ride them,” said Rui Gu, junior business major from China. “But I liked The Detonator.”

The group included students from South Korea, China, Finland and The Democratic Republic of Congo. According to Coleman-Hull, the students had a tendency to pair off and only spend time with members of their respective nationalities.

“We are quite a tight group,” Kuoppala said. “There were about eight or nine Finns there, so we kind of stuck together.”

But regardless of tendency to stay with familiar territory, events like this provide students with an opportunity to meet new people and experience new cultures.

Worlds of Fun is made up of three different sections from different cultures of the world. There is an oriental section, an African section, and an American section, which makes it a fitting place to take international students. Students who are from the part of the world that is being recreated had the chance to see how their culture is perceived in America.

“Certain types of stereotypes are presented by the different sections of Worlds of Fun,” Coleman-Hull said. “There is an image of what we think things look like versus what they really are like.”

The students spent eight hours in the park and were exhausted when it was time to get back on the bus, but they still got back in time to see the end of the ESU football season opener against Western State.

“It was a lot of fun, but I thought it was a little long,” Kuoppala said. “We were done with the park two hours before the bus left and I would have liked to see more of the game.”

The Office of International Education plans to take more trips during the school year, which may include a shopping trip to Kansas City paired with a tour of the Nelson-Adkins museum, a trip to the state capitol building in Topeka and a trip to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson.