assignment 5.

Evaluation European Policies Minor

In September I started the minor European Union Policies. I didn’t really orientate about what I wanted to do but it sounded attractive. When I went to the first meeting I was surprised when I heard which subjects this minor covers, I expected a sort of organizational scan on all EU institutions. Of course the first few tasks indeed covered this subject but after this introduction a number of other, very interesting subjects is treated. Subjects like; the monetary policy, the free movement of workers, discrimination, the agricultural policy and mergers and acquisitions.

All these subject are treated in different tasks. At the beginning of each week you have to read a task about a certain subject, this task is discussed in the tutor group session. Enduring these sessions the group talked about the content of task, which parts of the task are of importance for our learning process and we write down learning goals for the next tutor group session.

The objectives of the tasks were further explained in training session and background lectures, if you didn’t understand the subject of a certain task you could get the explanation enduring the TS and BL.

These training sessions and background lectures could be economical- or law-focused.

Next to the subjects in the tasks we also get skills classes. The first three weeks were all about negotiation, we had to watch a video about negotiation and we had to negotiate ourselves about certain subjects.

The next three weeks we had classes about business ethics. Here we learned how to be moral responsible towards employees and how business cultures can differ in different countries.

The last three weeks were all about debating. The first week we divided the class into groups of four persons and we had to come up with different statements which were debated in the weeks after. We also had to write a jury report and we had to coach the other debating groups.

Enduring the minor we got assignments. These assignments were about the topics that were in the tasks. The assignments were for example about different policies of the EU, policies in the member states and if these policies were in line with EU Law, structural funding and regional policy or mergers and acquisitions. These assignments were group work.

To evaluate if we understood all tasks we were assessed on the base of midterm tests, these tests exist out of 15 multiple-choice questions. This was also a pet topic for the written test at the end of the first 6 tasks and for the oral exam at the end of the minor. The written exam was a large exam with cases and open questions about those cases. The oral exam was about a individual paper we had to write about a certain EU related topic and some general background knowledge.

In my opinion this minor was a lot of fun, the topics were well chosen, the teachers had a lot of knowledge about the subjects and the invitation of expert guest speakers and the trip to Brussels, Strasburg and Luxemburg were really of added value. After all I can really recommend the EUP minor!