Students whose tracks are focused on the themes discussed in GIE also find the course rather repetitive. “The teachers should provoke the students, stimulate a debate and make them question their own beliefs,” Gelmetti added. “The discussion should be carried out in a more effective manner,” she said. Eleonora Gelmetti, a first-year Humanities major, shares this experience.
“Some lectures just felt like repetitive ramblings about the readings,” said Ruben de Klerk, a second-year Science major. In-class discussions, which should add more depth to the readings, remain very shallow, according to students. Some accuse it of providing little more than dry theory. “It invites you to think more deeply about culture, privilege, identity, and differences,” Litan added.Īlthough the practical component is well-regarded, many students feel the course falls short in other areas. “The group project, which allows you to engage with a group or subculture you wouldn’t normally do so with in your daily life, is a great way to exit the bubble, practice interview skills (qualitative research),” he said.
Thomas Litan, a third-year Social Science major, shares this opinion. “ It made us get out of the “AUC bubble” and made me realise how much more there was to Amsterdam than just the sort of “privileged” community,” first-year Social Science major Clara Jorgensen said.
Several students identify field work as one the courses’ main strengths.
COURSEFORUM UBA MANUAL
Besides that, there are readings, lectures and rotating guest lectures to provide the students with “a proper foundation”, as the manual explains, for their research.
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According to the course manual, it allows students to “acquire basic knowledge of the central concepts and theoretical debates, learn to critically reflect on and analyse popular discourses and representations of identity and culture, and learn how to methodologically conduct, analyse and present your own research about the subject”.Ī social scientific group research project carried out across Amsterdam is the main way through which these goals are achieved. The course broadly focuses on two themes – diversity and identity – and places them against the background of the global city of Amsterdam. The Global Identity Experience is a four week course, to be taken in either the January or June intensive of a student’s first year at AUC. According to those students, it is not only excluding introverts, but it comes across as shallow, irrelevant and unnecessary.
“The GIE course reflected everything I hated at AUC.” Weydert is just one of many students who have been voicing a variety of complaints about the course. “It was, like most of the AUC curriculum, directed towards the more extroverted students, making it difficult for to keep up or stay motivated,” he explained. The course, which relies heavily on group focused lectures and tasks, pushed Weydert into an unavoidable and uncomfortable position. It was in January 2015 after taking Global Identity Experience, an Academic Core course mandatory for all first-year students, that he made the decision to drop out. However, being an introverted student, Weydert found it difficult to enjoy his time here. Weydert joined AUC in September 2014, motivated by its challenging and demanding standards. “The GIE course was the final hit that made me leave,” said Tim Weydert, a former Social Science major at Amsterdam University College.
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