Language & Professional Skills: Student Support Programme
Full course description
Although exciting, starting your studies at university is also challenging. Studying at university is about taking responsibility. It is about becoming an independent individual. The first year of the three year Student Support Programme zooms in on the main challenges that you may encounter when transitioning to a university environment – specifically to a PBL environment. Moreover, the programme offers you a social and academic community of peers with whom you can socialize, exchange experiences, reflect on successes, challenges, opportunities and problems, and learn from each other.
The programme runs through the entire year, and uses a combination of group meetings with the mentor group, individual meetings with the mentor, and collective meetings with the full cohort. The mentor and the student together monitor the progress and well-being of the student in the BA European Studies. Furthermore, students are encouraged to think about their further academic career, by attending meetings about second-year activities and related choices to be made. By means of keeping a portfolio, students are asked to reflect upon different issues regarding their learning experience, their study skills, their challenges, and their opportunities.
Course objectives
At the end of the first year Student Support Programme you will possess the skills to:
- become engaged in your own academic development: to become what is often termed a ‘self-regulated learner’, able to identify your strengths and weakdesses, and describe a course of action, related to your generic skills and competences.
- manage your work and time effectively and efficiently.
- actively and constructively work in international teams, by contributing to collective learning processes, and by being able to take up specific responsibilities, such as acting as a chair, proving and receiving feedback, and taking minutes.
- describe a course of action in order to continue your studies in subsequent years of the BA and, ultimately, if you wish to continue your studies, at Master level.
Prerequisites
None
Recommended reading
- Burns, T., & Sinfield, S. (2012). Essential study skills. The complete guide to success at university. (3rd ed.). London: SAGE.
- Cottrell, S. (2013). The study skills handbook. (4th ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Moust, J.H.C., Bouhuijs, P.A.J., & Schmidt, H.G. (2007). Introduction to problem-based learning. A guide for students. Groningen: Noordhoff Uitgevers.
- C.W. van Leeuwen
- B.C. Zwegers
- E.D. Dieteren
- R.L.A. Widdershoven
- C.L.B. Stein