Reflective Learning Journal (it's long and serious, no need to read that !)
During my time at Bellerbys, I’ve learned a lot of new subjects. The French system for high school makes student decide between literature, science or economics, and I studied literature, but when I finished the course, I knew I did not want to go on with these studies, so I chose business, even though I had no idea on what to expect. When I started the foundation year, I had an average English level, I was bad at maths (and I still am) and I did not know anything about Economics, accounting or business, just hoping somehow I would like it.
The first term started with English, Maths, Business 1 and Economics 1. I thought it was a great organisation, because I already knew the first two subjects, so I did not feel like a complete stranger in the course, but there were the last two that reminded me that I was going somewhere completely new. The next terms were following the same pattern with the subjects I had learned : On the second term I had Economics again, knowing what to expect, but also accounting, and on the last term I had a second business, along with CIT, and even if I am quite comfortable with computers, I did not know what the course would be about. Luckily, the whole year was flowing perfectly.
The most important change that learning brought me was surely my English level. In France, I was an excellent student, part of the group of people that do not need to listen to the lesson to get As, but it was because the language teaching in France is awful : French people are, by nature, proud, so they believe they do not need to learn any other language. Therefore, the level of English in the classroom was so bad we were learning the same thing every year. However, when I went here, I was completely lost. I couldn’t really understand when English people spoke, and I spent most of my time with Singaporeans and their horrible accent (horrible to understand, not horrible itself, I still love you Singaporeans !). The first two months were very different from the rest : the first thing I had to teach myself when it comes to the new language was how to fake that you understand what people said. Slowly nodding or saying “yeah yeah…”, a real art indeed ! Once I learned that, my life got way better. The rest of the year was all about learning actual English, and I think I got to a pretty good level of actual understanding and speaking. I think what I could have improved was to discover and learn more and more accents. For every accent, I have to slowly learn how to understand, and I am still short on that : I wouldn’t get what a Scottish is saying, and I have no idea what people from Wales sound like.
Let’s turn, to follow the logical order, to the least important subject of the year for me : Maths. As a literature student, I was born to be bad at maths. Back in France, our class, because of the subject we were studying, had a simplified maths class that involved more excel formulas than actual algebra. Nerd as I am, I got an A, but in Bellerbys, we are having actual mathematics lessons. I started awful at it, did awful throughout the year and had a bad mark in the exam. See the improvement here ? I think I just don’t understand how it works… What did I learn ? Not much actually. I think I spent more time trying to draw smileys with my calculator than actually listening. Maybe that’s what I learned : smileys. Not very interesting or something that we can be proud of. That’s also what I could have done better : listening more in class. But I tried to understand, and failed.
Another subject I was quite familiar with was IT. I have always loved computers, and studied Excel while doing maths in France, so there was no big surprise for me. At least that is what I thought before I started the course. I did not learn any vital features of the softwares, but a lot of good details, especially on word. I try to avoid using word as much as possible for the simple reason that I prefer pen and paper, and the IT course showed me a lot of different tools : page breaks, indexes, graphs... What could I have done better ? I honestly cannot think of anything important. I was quite happy with the way I conducted my studies in this course. I think I could have payed more attention to the details : I am very messy and tend to do things fast but far from perfect. As the course went on, I tried to improve this, but I still ended with small details being wrong.
As for the 3 last subjects, Accounts, Business and Economics, I did not have any idea what to expect from them, and I think I did well in the end. Economics was by far the hardest one : there is a lot to learn and on various topics, which makes it hard to keep your mind focused on everything. Some things will not make sense unless you read them fifty times, and for the exam, you have a lot of diagrams and definition to know by heart. In the end, I think I did average. My Economics 1 result was just as good as everyone else's, and I had a lower mark for Economics 2, but nothing to be ashamed of. I learned a lot about how the financial world works, and it is easier now to understand the choices made by governments and companies regarding economics. I think it is a very useful subject to learn. However, I have never been a good student when it comes to learning : having to sit on a chair and revise makes me depressed. I had to, so I did what I could, but I sure could have had more success in these studies if I had spent more time going back through the lessons.
Business was the subject I preferred over the course of my year here, because it is the exact opposite of economics : it is not based on learning but rather developing a feeling, a technique. I love these subjects because they can be useful directly : while economics makes you understand how finances work, business teaches you how to act. We learned how to create business, market a product, produce it. It was very interesting, but also helped me draw a clear idea of what I wanted to do in the future : not only study business at university, but set up a business of my own in the future. I hope I did not do anything wrong in these subjects, because I do not see anything that I did. But again, it is all about details, and I am sure to be missing small things here.
Finally, Accounts. The only thing about accounts that I heard before going to Bellerbys was my father warning me on how boring it would be. In the end, I am not disagreeing with him. There is a lot to learn, and a small part for practice, and it felt like doing maths again. You do not have to think too much when doing accounts, but the very fact of applying formulas over and over bothers me. I did it, though, and got out with a pretty good mark in the exam, and of course, when learning business, it is a vital subject to learn. It might have not been a good experience, I still understand how good it was for my future to have done this, because in the end, that is what studies are about : future. When thinking of it, I could have invested more effort into doing practical exercises when asked to. I tend to do things rapidly, but not perfectly, and in Accounts, it means getting everything wrong in the end. When the exam came I had to correct that and ended up almost balancing the accounts, but it was not perfect, and maybe if I had spent more time practising, in class and at home, I could have been a much better accountant by now.
The first term started with English, Maths, Business 1 and Economics 1. I thought it was a great organisation, because I already knew the first two subjects, so I did not feel like a complete stranger in the course, but there were the last two that reminded me that I was going somewhere completely new. The next terms were following the same pattern with the subjects I had learned : On the second term I had Economics again, knowing what to expect, but also accounting, and on the last term I had a second business, along with CIT, and even if I am quite comfortable with computers, I did not know what the course would be about. Luckily, the whole year was flowing perfectly.
The most important change that learning brought me was surely my English level. In France, I was an excellent student, part of the group of people that do not need to listen to the lesson to get As, but it was because the language teaching in France is awful : French people are, by nature, proud, so they believe they do not need to learn any other language. Therefore, the level of English in the classroom was so bad we were learning the same thing every year. However, when I went here, I was completely lost. I couldn’t really understand when English people spoke, and I spent most of my time with Singaporeans and their horrible accent (horrible to understand, not horrible itself, I still love you Singaporeans !). The first two months were very different from the rest : the first thing I had to teach myself when it comes to the new language was how to fake that you understand what people said. Slowly nodding or saying “yeah yeah…”, a real art indeed ! Once I learned that, my life got way better. The rest of the year was all about learning actual English, and I think I got to a pretty good level of actual understanding and speaking. I think what I could have improved was to discover and learn more and more accents. For every accent, I have to slowly learn how to understand, and I am still short on that : I wouldn’t get what a Scottish is saying, and I have no idea what people from Wales sound like.
Let’s turn, to follow the logical order, to the least important subject of the year for me : Maths. As a literature student, I was born to be bad at maths. Back in France, our class, because of the subject we were studying, had a simplified maths class that involved more excel formulas than actual algebra. Nerd as I am, I got an A, but in Bellerbys, we are having actual mathematics lessons. I started awful at it, did awful throughout the year and had a bad mark in the exam. See the improvement here ? I think I just don’t understand how it works… What did I learn ? Not much actually. I think I spent more time trying to draw smileys with my calculator than actually listening. Maybe that’s what I learned : smileys. Not very interesting or something that we can be proud of. That’s also what I could have done better : listening more in class. But I tried to understand, and failed.
Another subject I was quite familiar with was IT. I have always loved computers, and studied Excel while doing maths in France, so there was no big surprise for me. At least that is what I thought before I started the course. I did not learn any vital features of the softwares, but a lot of good details, especially on word. I try to avoid using word as much as possible for the simple reason that I prefer pen and paper, and the IT course showed me a lot of different tools : page breaks, indexes, graphs... What could I have done better ? I honestly cannot think of anything important. I was quite happy with the way I conducted my studies in this course. I think I could have payed more attention to the details : I am very messy and tend to do things fast but far from perfect. As the course went on, I tried to improve this, but I still ended with small details being wrong.
As for the 3 last subjects, Accounts, Business and Economics, I did not have any idea what to expect from them, and I think I did well in the end. Economics was by far the hardest one : there is a lot to learn and on various topics, which makes it hard to keep your mind focused on everything. Some things will not make sense unless you read them fifty times, and for the exam, you have a lot of diagrams and definition to know by heart. In the end, I think I did average. My Economics 1 result was just as good as everyone else's, and I had a lower mark for Economics 2, but nothing to be ashamed of. I learned a lot about how the financial world works, and it is easier now to understand the choices made by governments and companies regarding economics. I think it is a very useful subject to learn. However, I have never been a good student when it comes to learning : having to sit on a chair and revise makes me depressed. I had to, so I did what I could, but I sure could have had more success in these studies if I had spent more time going back through the lessons.
Business was the subject I preferred over the course of my year here, because it is the exact opposite of economics : it is not based on learning but rather developing a feeling, a technique. I love these subjects because they can be useful directly : while economics makes you understand how finances work, business teaches you how to act. We learned how to create business, market a product, produce it. It was very interesting, but also helped me draw a clear idea of what I wanted to do in the future : not only study business at university, but set up a business of my own in the future. I hope I did not do anything wrong in these subjects, because I do not see anything that I did. But again, it is all about details, and I am sure to be missing small things here.
Finally, Accounts. The only thing about accounts that I heard before going to Bellerbys was my father warning me on how boring it would be. In the end, I am not disagreeing with him. There is a lot to learn, and a small part for practice, and it felt like doing maths again. You do not have to think too much when doing accounts, but the very fact of applying formulas over and over bothers me. I did it, though, and got out with a pretty good mark in the exam, and of course, when learning business, it is a vital subject to learn. It might have not been a good experience, I still understand how good it was for my future to have done this, because in the end, that is what studies are about : future. When thinking of it, I could have invested more effort into doing practical exercises when asked to. I tend to do things rapidly, but not perfectly, and in Accounts, it means getting everything wrong in the end. When the exam came I had to correct that and ended up almost balancing the accounts, but it was not perfect, and maybe if I had spent more time practising, in class and at home, I could have been a much better accountant by now.
