Reflection

General reflection after reflection meeting on 04-11-2021

I talked about the fact that I was quite happy with the education at TU Delft and didn’t perceive it as a bad institution. I think that for me the things that I learned at the minor, I can best pursue in my free time and educate myself on it. It was nice to hear Tamara say that she also thinks that we shouldn’t always see things as bad, but things like institutions can also be good. This is also complementary to the general feeling of the minor. It’s often about the things we de wrong, but I in general think that things (especially in the Netherlands) go really well!

During the general reflection I also mentioned the fact that I found it difficult that so many difficult words were used during the workshops/lectures. This really meant that I got derailed from the subject during the lecture. I did find the information interesting, but just couldn’t follow it. During the introduction week we did some exercises/discussions during the lectures/workshops that helped follow the information. Tamara mentioned that I could have always contacted her about that. I was really wondering why I didn’t contact her, because that could really have helped. I guess it has to do with my educational system in which you just have to accept the way that your teacher teaches you.

Reflection of my position

During this my minor I learned what the word pragmatic meant. Shortly afterwards I learned that this word is a really good word to describe myself. I think I can really listened to all the sides of the story and see why people think like that.

Being pragmatic still means that you do have a certain opinion and I do think that my background/opinion really influenced the way I experienced this minor. With certain things I disagreed, not because I really weighed the pros and cons, but because I have been taught/nurtured in a certain way. Sometimes I realized after given a certain opinion, that I only wanted to disagree, because it was a ‘set’ opinion for me. Not because I thought the subject over enough. I will take this with me during my life and try to let certain pre-taught opinions go.

Reflection on the group project

Doing the group project was hard for me. In the beginning the group had a lot of energy to start on climate change. I also really wanted to explore the subject in a different way. For the first few weeks, we mostly came up with ideas what to do for the group project. So we did make progress, but there weren’t really any physical results.

I still had enough TIME for the minor, especially in the first few weeks of the group project. In the end of the project there were some more meetings planned a few days before the meeting, planning wise this resulted in my not being able to join these meetings. I find it very unfortunate that I wasn’t able to join these meetings, because they were very important for the end result. Luckly I was able to plan meetings with my sub group, because with fewer people you are more flexible. So I was able to contribute in that part.

I really liked to work with all the people in my group project! It was so nice to see the different ways of working and I will take this with me in the rest of my studies.

I have a very interesting relation to TIME, which means that for most of the TIME during the week, I try to plan as much as possible. After finding out that the minor was only planned on Monday and Thursday and looking at the work intensity of the first few weeks, I thought I could also start with the Italian bachelor in Leiden which I wanted to start this year. This resulted in my also having classes on the other days of the week, next to having my group project at TU Delft.