Week in the Life: Charlotte (3rd Year Student)
Hey everyone! My name is Charlotte, and I’m a third year M&M student! I will be showing you what a week looks like when you study M&M. I do a few extracurriculars (committees and honours), so do keep that in mind while reading : ) Let’s start!
Monday
I didn’t have class scheduled for today, but I had three meetings and time planned for studying!
I started my Monday with an (online) thesis meeting. I got some last feedback on my research proposal, and after I could really get started with my research! I’m doing my thesis on the family language planning of Finnish immigrants in the Netherlands. I have Finnish parents myself, so it is nice to have a little personal touch in my research.
Little sneak peak of my face in the meets preview 😉
After this I continued to prepare some material for my classes of this week. I have three classes in total (plus thesis): Diversity in Education, Diversity Management and Nature vs. Nurture in Language. The last course is an Honours class.
The second meeting of the day was the almanac meeting! M&M has a study association called Multi, and I am the chair of the committee which is in charge of the yearbook! While waiting on my other committee members to return from their classes, I made a little friend.
We decided to do our meeting out in the sun today! We’re currently in the designing stage, I’m very excited to show everyone the end product. After this, I went home, had dinner and in the evening I had my last meeting about fieldwork I am conducting for another Honours class. The meeting was short so I did not document anything.
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning I had my first class of the week: Diversity Management. Our third year is designed to prepare us for the job market, so we have job-oriented classes like this one. We learn how to design and do a workshop, and handle diversity-related issues in businesses. This lecture was about Diversity Marketing. The papers in the picture were from an exercise on segmenting your target audience (to gradually vaguer segments, like freedom).
After class, I sat in the canteen of the Harmony building with a classmate of mine. We worked on our theses, and I also did some committee work. I had nothing else scheduled for the day, so when I went home I did some last bits of work and ended my evening by having some quality time with my hamster and playing Horizon Forbidden West on my PS.
Wednesday
The second class of the week! This time it is Diversity in Education. It is good to mention that in your third year, you have fewer contact hours with your professors than in the two years before (two instead of four). This means more time spent on prepping the materials before class. The classroom looks quite empty, but most people were sitting next to or behind me. Nevertheless, we do not have huge 100 people classes. Most classes average around 20 students, though I heard that one course in the first year is getting increasingly popular as an elective and is the exception to the rule. The small numbers do mean that the professors know you personally and can give you individual help easily.
After class, I went home and worked on my thesis a bit more. That evening I had an event from Multi with Bernlef, the association for Frisian students in Groningen. It was a pub lecture on the Frisian language by Liuwe Westra, a Frisian linguist who also translated the Lord of the Rings in English.
We got a free beer during the lecture too! I ended the evening with a round of barklunen against a friend. I enjoy going to Multi events because I can get to know the students from the other years better. In the picture students from all three years are represented! It was a great night.
Thursday
Yesterday I had the last M&M class of the week, and I had no other classes or committee meetings scheduled for Thursday. I went to Zernike to eat some lunch at the food court with my boyfriend and studied in one of the buildings there. We sadly don’t have any classes at Zernike, but it’s worth looking around and definitely visiting the food court at one point! I finished my literature review for my thesis that day.
Friday
Friday morning I conducted a discussion panel for one of the first-year courses, Minorities in Europe I: Histories. The first-year representative was unavailable so I stepped in to take on one seminar group, as I am the third-year representative. In M&M, we value the quality of our courses and the opinions of the students, so at the end of the block, we always have a small discussion round where you can voice your opinion on the course and professors. This way we can make sure to make the courses even better the following year.
On Friday afternoon I had my last class of the week and also the last class of this block, Nature versus Nurture in Language. It’s a chill class with a lot of discussion and debate. Normally I would have started preparing my classes for next week, but since the coming three weeks are resit and exam weeks and I have neither, I didn’t have to! I have a few deadlines in the future but I’m still ignoring those.
I hope I was able to give you an idea of what it is like to study M&M. I’m always happy to answer your questions about the study. If you have any questions left, you can reach out to me on Instagram, @Charlottekatariina, or LinkedIn, Charlotte Hoogers!