I and my teammates, Samantha Upreti and Sebastien Vandaele, had an extremely amazing time this semester with our second-year mentors. Although we were not able to carry out some of the activities we were supposed to, we were able to build friendship with them and learn a lot from them in the specific course areas while doing so.
Our mentors were able to organize two major coaching sessions with us, their mentees. We are so delighted that they did because these two coaching sessions were very effective. They were of huge help to us, to the best of their knowledge. They referred us to resources they had knowledge of in cases where they weren’t capacitated to help us.
Unfortunately, we were neither able to carry out a cultural activity nor were we able to carry out a leisure activity. We had several conversations as regards planning these activities but due to personal timing difficulties and other course assignments, we ended up without the cultural and leisure activities. We did eat and drink together during one of our coaching sessions though.
The difficulties I faced being a mentee was not being able to have active mentors for the most part of the first semester. Our previous mentor had left the school for a period of time, leaving us without the needed help in the necessary areas. Lasha and Maheesh, our current mentors only identified with us towards the end of the first semester which was when we had our first coaching session after which everyone became very busy with the second semester that quickly arrived with lots of projects and assignments, part of what resulted in our not having our outdoor activities. We just couldn’t find a suitable time for both parties.
Nevertheless, Chris, our previous mentor, did have one outdoor activity with us during the beginning of this school year (first semester). We took a walk on various streets in Ghent and also stopped somewhere along our tour/journey route to drink some soda together.
Watch the brief picture slideshow below displaying our outdoor activity with Chris, I and Samantha's former teammate, and Amadou.
Another thing I enjoyed much was the gravity of help I personally gained from our current mentors. They invested time in answering our questions on our group WhatsApp conversation and ensured we had all the help they could offer. During our ICT project, they coached us on how to use some of the functions we needed to use for the project and thanks to their help, we managed to pass that evaluation.
We were able to find suitable times for both of our coaching sessions and utilized the time well too. We, the mentees, were sure to exhaust all the questions and confusions on certain courses that we had and they, our mentors, were sure to help. The coaching sessions were also not only study related, matters, we shared more about ourselves with each other, and also shared opinions about the college and educational system in Belgium. Additionally, we maximized the opportunity to learn more about our different cultures since we all came from different nations. One of the most interesting things I learnt about was Nepal's culture of not eating cows because they classify it as a holy animal.
Log of Activities
Touring Ghent: During this session, our former mentor, Chris, took us on a tour around the city of Ghent.
Date & Timing: 18/9/2018 (13:30-17:30)
Participants: Chidinma, Samantha, Chris and Amadou
Short evaluation: The session went really well. We got to know the city of Ghent a little better. It was our second day at school, so we enjoyed having that first time experience a whole lot.
Coaching session 1: During this session, our new mentors, Lasha and Maheesh, practically helped us with Banking and Finance and Economics.
Date & Timing: 21/12/2018 (12:30-14:30)
Participants: Chidinma, Samantha, Lasha and Maheesh
Short evaluation: The session went really well. We got some clarity as regards the exams that were coming up after the holidays. We majorly revised what we studied in Banking and Finance and Economics in the first semester.
Coaching session 2: This coaching session was again about the subject matter but this time our mentors provided us some tips and tricks for certain assignments, subjects and projects. They cleared some of the uncertainties we had regarding different courses’ tasks.
Date & Timing: 08/05/2019 (13:30-15:00)
Participants: Chidinma, Samantha, Lasha, Maheesh and Sebastian.
Short evaluation: This second coaching session went even better than the first one as we had some things to eat and drink together. We got very detailed help from our mentors as regards a team assignment and some exam tips.
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