In the beginning of our academic year we were asked to form groups of three these peers are called Buddies. The idea behind this concept is to have regular meetings with the buddies to talk about how the block is going, what are our challenges, and how we can help each other. These meetings are recorded in so called Buddy Reports.
Meeting 1- October 4th
In the first meeting we decided to talk about the overall course and all classes. Especially, how everything is going and what were our expectations and what we faced in reality. First and foremost, it is safe to say that it was quite overwhelming in the first few weeks since there we had to do many assignments for different classes and everyone-also the other classmates-experienced some confusion. However, Rob and Leonie-our coaches for the first year- helped us a lot, also because most of our classes were taught by them. Therefore, after some time and well-structured classes with Rob and Leonie, we got in the rhythm and the confusion disappeared slowly.
Sport events, was our biggest module, and, therefore, we had to do most of the work for that class. The project seemed to be unachievable as nobody from us has ever organized a complete event. For the three of us finding a client was pretty hard since we did not have a network yet in Groningen and every target group brought different challenges. Moreover, we were all in different groups and had therefore other problems.
We also gave feedback about what we think about each other because we did not know each other for very long, so we could just assume things. Overall, we were all very happy with our buddy group since everybody seemed to be very hard-working and also extremely nice and friendly, which made working in this group, for coaching assignments quite easy and enjoyable.
Meeting 2- November 3rd
We are coming to the end of the block, meaning that exams and the deadlines for the projects are due. Therefore, it was quite a stressful time when the meeting was held. However, in the beginning we talked about how we felt about the overall block. All in all, we are happy about the first block, even though there were definitely some issues not only concerning the studying, but also for example, in our groups for sport event. We all had fun teaching lessons for Sport & Identity we also liked that we are evaluated via a presentation and not another exams as it makes our studying much easier. Sport sociology and event management were our main exams, therefore, all of us put the most effort into those classes. Especially, the reading was very intense and took some time and some of us underestimated those courses.
Meeting 3- November 25th
The first block is done and we got our grades. Unfortunately, not everyone is completely happy with the received grades. We also talked about our opinions on the first block. Overall it was quite manageable and the course were mostly fun. Chiefly, Sports and Identity was liked by us three because we did not have to study too much and the presentations as evaluation was the best way. Sport Events was the course that needed most of the work, especially the final report. However, the events worked out quite well and it was also a valuable experience to organize such an event from A to Z. Although one group had a lot tensions and was not working together very well.
The second block stared already and we were introduced to all classes. Moreover, we have new teachers like Anouk and Edwin. Financial Management is one of the new courses which was overwhelming and hard to understand for some of us since not all financial terms were well-known. Our new big project is called Organizational advice. It already seemed like we need to put much more effort into this block, especially because of this project. Finding an organization is extremely hard and most of the sport companies do not want to cooperate for such a big project were they would also have to put a lot of time into. This part is quite frustrating since you cannot really start working and everyone feels, therefore, a little bit stressed. The other new course seemed to be really nice. All three of us are looking forward to writing the essay for Sports & ethics because we got to choose the topic by ourselves which makes it much more enjoyable.
Meeting 4- December 17th
We are a little further then the half of the second block and the Christmas break is right around the corner. We now have a better idea of our courses than at our last meeting and we can evaluate them better.
Firstly, we talked about organizational advice as it is our biggest project and the most time-consuming. Actually, there are very different opinions on the course and not everyone likes the course since the workload is extremely high compared with the last big group project. However, personally, I can say that my group works together very well and we have made good progress so far. Additionally, our organization is quite supportive which helps a lot. This is, unfortunately, not the case for all of us.
Another course with mixed feelings is Sport & technical framework. Overall, we all like that it is mostly a practical course and that we actually do sports and also that we can improve our coaching style. However, we were a little bit confused on how Anouk handled the last couple of sessions since we did not get information about classes that were scheduled, but for some reason did not happened. But this is probably an issue that can be solved through communication.
All in all, we all come to very different conclusion on the second block, but personally I can say that the workload is indeed much higher but overall I enjoy the courses.
Meeting 5- January 27th
We are going towards the end of the second block and our first semester. We only had one normal exam which was financial management. Not everyone enjoyed the course neither the exam some of us believe that they most likely have to do the resit. Moreover, two of us three still have to write resit exams from the last block in the upcoming week which they study for right now.
Due to Corona this block wasn’t the most enjoyable one. We rarely had in person classes after the Christmas break. We all agreed that online classes are not as much fun and it is sometimes really hard to concentrate for seven hours in front of the laptop which we had on Thursdays However, it must be said that almost all teachers tried to make the classes as fun and enjoyable as possible with tools such as mentimeter, whiteboards, parallel groups etc. Whereby, there were actually some online classes that weren’t as bad. One thing that we believe could be improved for the future is the communication. We received information about our classes and how they will be held very late which made the planning quite difficult.
Also we talked about Sport & technical framework since this was the only class that was supposed to be in person. Nevertheless, only Raoul decided to finish the class and do his practical exam. Stanimir and Liam both decided that they want to retake the class in the next block because of the overall situation and the difficult planning. All in all, we have to say that this block was not the optimal one because of the unfortunate circumstances. However, we tried to make the best out of it and we definity hope that the next block will be better again. It seems that we will have normal classes again which we really hope for.
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