Storm

During your study ups and downs always occur. You can have a great teacher for one course but with another it’s impossible to stay awake. The content can be interesting, or you have to struggle your way to the exams. This isn’t strange, as the didactic qualities differ per teacher and some courses are just needed for basic skills. I can imagine that almost everyone has an opinion about what course they did or didn’t like. Needless to say that everyone has complained at least once, as complaining is one of the many things we are best at as students. What I would like to see more however, is people turning their complaints into feedback which can help to improve certain things (I am very passionate about our education, Helge and the rest of my board can confirm that ?). And there are so many organs where people can do this, but the only thing that most people remember is the feedback form they fill in after an exam. I’ll give you a crash course on what organs we have and where you can go to with your complaints, feedback or ideas!

This organogram begins of course with the Executive Board of the university but focusses only on the Geosciences Faculty. The Faculty Council consists out of 8 students (including Vincent and I) who handle all matters related to the whole faculty. For example, the budget and policies of the faculty, housing and contact with the other organs within the faculty. Then we have 3 different organs within our department. The first is the Education Committee who analyze and discuss the feedback forms and make points about what could be improved within the courses. Rosalie Hagenaars and Alexander Robertus are in that committee. The points made by the Education Committee are then discussed within the Programme Board, in which Saré takes place. Saré is by the way your go-to woman for every issue related to education. Lastly, we have the Education and Promotion Committee within Storm. The committee organizes the Course Evaluation Panels and other activities like the parent’s day, staff-student activities and more activities related to education.

After this crash course I want to bring to your attention that the university is organizing the ‘Week of Participation’ this week. The University Council, the Faculty Council and the Education Committee will be busy with collecting all your ideas and feedback but also trying to give you a clearer idea about what we do and to see if there are people interested in joining one of the organs. On Wednesday the Faculty Council will stand in the Educatorium to receive your feedback and the next day in the hall of KBG the whole student representation will organize a food market! More info about the activities for our faculty can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/faculteitsraadgeowetenschappenuu/.

So this is my call to every one who reads this: come and get a free bite and while you’re at it, let your voice finally be heard so we can improve our education and university in general! Or as Obama said: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

With love always,

Florette