INTERDISCIPLINARY SKILLS
Due to the nature of the Bachelor in European Cultures, which English Studies belongs to, each student is required to take a variety of interdisciplinary courses, which allow for a greater insight to other fields inside the Bachelor studies, which belong to other fields within the study of humanities. Some of the fields explored include Teaching, Philosophy, as well as History. Having experience in these fields allowed me not only to relate these topics to the English Studies track, but also help me find my academic passion - language teaching.
By meeting the requirements, I was able to participate in the peer tutoring workshop, which allowed me to have my first teaching experiences, as well as help me understand the various perspectives and circumstances related to the language learner and teacher. This led to me being employed at the university's Language Centre, in which I was able to give consultations regarding academic English to fellow students, as well as teach conversation classes to beginners and help in event organisation. This allowed me to find my purpose as an English Studies student, and allowed me to participate in all other courses not only as a student, but as a potential teacher and researcher as well.
The interdisciplinary framework allows to not only gain knowledge from other humanit fields, but to also share personal experiences as an English Studies student with other students from other faculties. By interacting and sharing knowledge, this framework enhanced the overall experiences of the daily student life.
ACADEMIC SKILLS
Throughout the 3 years of studies in English Studies, various experiences allowed me to further refine my academic skills. The single course that gave me the most assistance, by helping me develop citation and referencing skills, was 'English for Academic Purposes', as the rigorous curriculum allowed students to quickly learn various academic English skills, including paragraph structuring, referencing, as well as many others.
In a large amount of courses, one of the compulsory elements was to hold debates with other students, which not only allowed for students to refine their group work skills, but also quickly adapt to learn the required presentation and public speaking skills. While in the University of Luxembourg all of my debates were in English, I was given the opportunity, during my semester abroad in Tokyo, Japan, to hold a debate in intermediate Japanese, which proved to be a challenging experience, but one that led to very positive results.
All previously learned academic skills led to the final conclusive work of the bachelor studies - the bachelor thesis. Having chosen to use interview data for the thesis, I had to quickly adapt and learn fundamental interviewing skills, as well as learning how to decide which information to include or exclude in the data analysis. However, despite the large amount of information conveyed in the thesis, all students were required to condense the information for the thesis defense, which was restricted to a 10 minute time period. While the overall amount of academic skills acquired has increased, I wish to continue sustaining them, as well as combining them with future academic skills that may be learned throughout further education.
ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITIES
The spark to take initiative and assume a responsible role was not always present within me as an individual, but as I entered the University of Luxembourg and grew accustomed to the student life, I wished to challenge myself and to take a more leading role among my peers. In the second semester of the first year, I was elected as the vice-representative of the English Studies track, and for the second and third year, I was elected as the student representative for both years. The main factors that led me to continue and pursue this position were the ability to create a link between professors and fellow students - I was able to relay feedback from students directly to various professors, and thus able to convey important information between both parties. The role that coincided with this was that of being a leader of a peer group, which gave me an even closer link with a concentrated, small number of students. I was also part of the founding members of the University of Luxembourg English Studies Students Association (ULESSA), and used my newly acquired public speaking skills to take on a role of advertisement for the association's events.
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Throughout the 3 years spent in the University of Luxembourg, my extra-curricular activities were divided into two categories - ones directly related to the university and its activities, and ones in which I was able to continuously hone the skills I had acquired throughout my academic experiences. The first category consisted of activities for the aforementioned association 'ULESSA', in which I took the role of hosting events on stage, and thus regulating the flow of the events in that manner. Secondly, the previously mentioned peer tutoring work for the university's Language Centre allowed me to experience teaching students from various cultural backgrounds, as well as various levels of English. However, the other category mainly consisted of my passion, which is YouTube - mainly focusing on creating content for one of the trading card games owned by the company 'Bushiroad'. However, this hobby has become almost an extension of my academic skills, as being able to continuously practice public speaking and presentation skills allowed me to further improve my delivery of debates and presentations on campus as well. This all culminated during my exchange semester in Japan, where I was invited by the company to commentate for their World Championship 2017 Finals, which not only required continuous public speaking skills, but also in-depth analysis of frequently alternating situations - thus allowing me to improve in analysis as well.