Evaluation

My evaluation of the European Union Policy minor is in general that it was rather good. I quite enjoyed the classes with Mr. Frencken and Mr. Vermanen, the lectures were instructive and well built up. The classes in itself were easy to follow, if you did your homework. This was one of the things I really appreciated, if a person did not read his chapter than this would not become bothersome for the rest class because the teacher did not start explaining what is written in the chapter. If a teacher does start explaining, it motivates students for not reading their books and the classes will become really boring for the students who did read their chapters.

The minor in itself was well built up, because first we looked at the problem from all different angels, then we made questions to answer the original problem. When answered a discussion was made to see what everybody had found as an answer. The only thing that I found annoying was that it was not always clear to me which answer was right. Fore all students had some sort of answer yet none knew if theirs was alright. So debates could start from that point on and from that point on I always lost track, for I did not know which answer I should believe. I have asked Mr. Frencken why the classes are done this way and he told me that he would explain the difficulties that arose during those debates in the next lectures. Often he did, yet I still had difficulties placing his answer with all the previous answers given. Maybe their aught to be some answer forms so that all students know what a right answer is.

What I really liked were those small extra subjects like: debating, negotiating and looking back to it, I also liked the ethics. The reason why I enjoyed all these subjects was because it had nothing to do with the European Union so it gave some diversion to it all. Also because you could practise it right away and see if it had any result for you. While following the classes of negotiating we learned that you should always ask “if I do this than you do that”. I can tell you it really works, I tested on my parents some friends and even my boyfriend and I came to the conclusion that I got al lot more things done the way I wanted it. The same goes for ethics while writing the report I hated everything about the subject, but it got me thinking and talking about it. It resulted in some really interesting conversations with my friends, and maybe even a better sense of what I find you can and can not do. And debating was just fun, it was like putting on a show. The bigger the show the better your arguments started to be, even if your arguments were weak. So it was just fun watching it. The classes reminded me a lot of the movie called Chicago. It’s all about the way you present yourself your case and then your arguments, also in this order.

My conclusion is that if I should mark this minor I would give it an 8. I always enjoyed going to school, I even started watching the news seriously, because I would hear what was happening in Europe. What I really liked was when I heard something and I knew what was going on and what the difficulties would be. Fore example when president Sarkozy set that he wanted to support the car industry, I knew that this was not allowed in the EU.

Points that may be improved is that there could be a bid more help for the report.
Another thing that has to be improved is the exchange information you get, this should be better. The information you get is minimal and to late, we already knew for two years that we had to find an exchange school, we should be informed earlier than one week before we have to hand in our school choice and the subjects that we would like to follow. Maybe students could get a coach who helps them in the process, from the beginning until the end.