REFLECTION
I am an Erasmus student in International Management. I am doing my full year of my Master 1 here in the Solent University. I am French and in France the Master is in two years and not one like in the UK, in this way it is not my final year of studies and this is the reason why I had the opportunity to do my whole year abroad.
It was my choice and my dream to go study one year in a British University. In fact, the British education system is very different than the French one. I had to adapt to a unknow situation, to a new environment, foreign language, new ways of teaching and learning … Indeed, in French universities classes are based in study of theories, it is rare when we have practical classes like I have currently. In other words, the lecturer is giving its classes and for exams we have to learn every classes by heart and answer to a question during exams period (one week in January and one week in May).
While here all the classes are online and during seminars we are working more deeply and using numerous practical examples, for exams I had to think, to be critical and to search information. It is very different and at the beginning hard to adapt. One of the think that I will change in my second semester is to organise my time. In fact, in my home university I am used to work during a short period before my exams and here I have to start to work on my final submission since the first week of classes.
I consider myself very lucky to be here, to be able to discover a new way of doing things. Furthermore, I am free to choose my classes and I had the opportunity to attend to classes that I always wanted to follow in an international environment.
Reflective statement as well are a totally new task for me and for most of international students. I found the idea very interesting, I am used to be critical with my work and in general, however I never had the opportunity to write these critics. I believe that this kind of exercise is very useful and helpful to understand what you can do better.
My Applied and Academic English unit help me to understand standards expected from a student in a British university. For example, without this class I will not be able to know how to reference, moreover I felt an evolution in my academic writing and speaking.
I am not confident in English presentation and thanks to this unit I know now that I am able to do a job interview in English. I am conscious that I know how to behave and I am always smiling, however I need to increase my vocabulary and my grammar skills.
Unfortunately, I will not attend to English classes in my second semester but I will work at home thanks to Erasmus programs for example. My objective is to have by the end of the year a while range of vocabulary and not making any errors in grammar.