Intro to ROC, Tour of Utrecht, & Class Presentations
Monday, May 18
Yesterday was my first day "on the job." Joyce and I drove to Utrecht (which was about a 15 minute drive) to the Creative College of ROC Midden Nederland. This is where students whose majors are graphic design, theater, broadcasting take their classes.
We met up with the other visitors from the US and their Dutch hosts. I don't remember all of their names, but there were two women from Fresno, California (Gretchen - a nursing faculty member and another who I think works in administration), one guy from Oakton Community College which is in the Chicago suburbs (Michael - Vice President of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), and another woman from Tennessee (Angela - psychology instructor who also works in administration, I believe she is the department chair over social sciences). They all are nice!
We had about an hour of introduction to the ROC (ROC basically stands for regional educational centers and they are all throughout the Netherlands; Midden Nederland means the middle of the country) and then the President of ROC Midden Nederland came and talked to us for about an hour.
It was lunch time after that and then we made our way to downtown Utrecht. Norbert, who is the director of international programs at ROC Midden Nederland, took us on a tour. He told us that his background was in medieval architecture, so he was a good guide! The tour was a couple of hours long. The downtown area is so charming and the cathedral was beautiful.
We ended our tour in a restaurant called Winkel van Sinkel for a drink to warm us up. I had a Bailey's hot chocolate. Yum!
At home we had pizza for dinner! One was a barbecue chicken type and the other was a veggie type.
Tuesday, May 19
Today started off a little earlier than other days; we left Joyce's apartment at 7:30 am to get to her college--the ROC Midden Nederland Business and Administration College. I met lots of people who I can't remember or pronounce their names. I also went on a tour of the building. It's a pretty small building, I guess, in comparison to Heartland's campus. The size of her college is probably about as big as the Workforce Development Center at HCC.
My first activity was to watch a career class. Joyce was with me to translate because the class was taught exclusively in Dutch. I think we expected the class to be slightly different than it was; it was mostly anecdotes about the guest speaker starting her business because that's what the students were interested in.
At 11:00, I gave my presentation to Joyce's level 2 students. There were 10 students in attendance and I only got through 8 slides of my presentation; they were full of questions! The students were very lively and their questions were hilarious. How much does McDonald's cost? Have you ever been to New York? Have you ever met a celebrity? Where do Americans go on vacation? Joyce had to translate quite a bit and help them formulate questions. It was fun!
At 1:15, I gave my presentation again to level 4 students. There were 14 students there, so small groups! They were much more quiet and had only a few questions. After my presentation, Joyce and her intern did a lesson on "past simple" and "present perfect" verbs and I didn't do so great on the quiz. Oops. The students also did a couple of exercises with speaking and writing and it was fun to see the students translate phrases from Dutch and make sentences in English. They were looking to me with questions, so that was cute.
It's really interesting how the lessons relate back to what their job will be. Joyce introduced a new chapter for them with explaining the difference between a conference and a trade show. It makes sense since they will all be working in the business field. The activities also related to business.
Tonight for dinner we had a meat, potato, veggie concoction that was good!
Yesterday was my first day "on the job." Joyce and I drove to Utrecht (which was about a 15 minute drive) to the Creative College of ROC Midden Nederland. This is where students whose majors are graphic design, theater, broadcasting take their classes.
We met up with the other visitors from the US and their Dutch hosts. I don't remember all of their names, but there were two women from Fresno, California (Gretchen - a nursing faculty member and another who I think works in administration), one guy from Oakton Community College which is in the Chicago suburbs (Michael - Vice President of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), and another woman from Tennessee (Angela - psychology instructor who also works in administration, I believe she is the department chair over social sciences). They all are nice!
We had about an hour of introduction to the ROC (ROC basically stands for regional educational centers and they are all throughout the Netherlands; Midden Nederland means the middle of the country) and then the President of ROC Midden Nederland came and talked to us for about an hour.
It was lunch time after that and then we made our way to downtown Utrecht. Norbert, who is the director of international programs at ROC Midden Nederland, took us on a tour. He told us that his background was in medieval architecture, so he was a good guide! The tour was a couple of hours long. The downtown area is so charming and the cathedral was beautiful.
We ended our tour in a restaurant called Winkel van Sinkel for a drink to warm us up. I had a Bailey's hot chocolate. Yum!
At home we had pizza for dinner! One was a barbecue chicken type and the other was a veggie type.
Tuesday, May 19
Today started off a little earlier than other days; we left Joyce's apartment at 7:30 am to get to her college--the ROC Midden Nederland Business and Administration College. I met lots of people who I can't remember or pronounce their names. I also went on a tour of the building. It's a pretty small building, I guess, in comparison to Heartland's campus. The size of her college is probably about as big as the Workforce Development Center at HCC.
My first activity was to watch a career class. Joyce was with me to translate because the class was taught exclusively in Dutch. I think we expected the class to be slightly different than it was; it was mostly anecdotes about the guest speaker starting her business because that's what the students were interested in.
At 11:00, I gave my presentation to Joyce's level 2 students. There were 10 students in attendance and I only got through 8 slides of my presentation; they were full of questions! The students were very lively and their questions were hilarious. How much does McDonald's cost? Have you ever been to New York? Have you ever met a celebrity? Where do Americans go on vacation? Joyce had to translate quite a bit and help them formulate questions. It was fun!
At 1:15, I gave my presentation again to level 4 students. There were 14 students there, so small groups! They were much more quiet and had only a few questions. After my presentation, Joyce and her intern did a lesson on "past simple" and "present perfect" verbs and I didn't do so great on the quiz. Oops. The students also did a couple of exercises with speaking and writing and it was fun to see the students translate phrases from Dutch and make sentences in English. They were looking to me with questions, so that was cute.
It's really interesting how the lessons relate back to what their job will be. Joyce introduced a new chapter for them with explaining the difference between a conference and a trade show. It makes sense since they will all be working in the business field. The activities also related to business.
Tonight for dinner we had a meat, potato, veggie concoction that was good!
General Observations
- Joyce's college is very modern, new, and open! It also feels small, which is nice.
- Joyce had mentioned to me that the majority of the student population at her college is of Arabic descent. The first class that I presented to looked like they all had an Arabic background.
- I am lucky that I have my own office! Joyce shares an office space with four other colleagues. I liken it to how adjunct faculty sometimes have to share office space.
- They have such a fancy coffee/tea/water machine! We only get that if someone brings it in from home!
- We had a big rainstorm today with lots of hail, and there was even thunder and lightning! The roof of this building has terra cotta looking roofing and so in the loft, the rain and hail sounded like a musical instrument! People just kept riding their bikes in the storm!
- I find myself in the midst of Dutch conversations quite a bit, but it's interesting because I can, contextually, sometimes understand what's going on.