About Me
Hi! My name is Yoshi. I’m from Japan. I came to the Netherlands as an exchange student in August 2024. I will be 22 years old this May, and I’m a senior at my home university. While my major is economics back in Japan, I minor in intercultural and international communication at NHL Stenden. Last semester, I minored in branding and Marketing Communications, which are all related to the business field.
How I knew Bridges by Mentors
Shortly after arriving in the Netherlands, exchange students had introduction days. During this period, Alex, who is a coordinator of Bridges by Mentors, gave a presentation about it. It was on this occasion that I learned about BBM.
Why I decided to join
Even though I could not understand it completely due to my poor listening skills in English honestly, I was impressed by the presentation from Alex, and I thought it must be interesting to join the program that is carried out by him. Additionally, I found it nice that the certificate would be issued at the end of the program. I expected that I would be able to make more friends and gain more experience than I did not participate. Therefore, I decided to participate in the program.
Mentoring training 1
Exchange students who joined Bridges by Mentors needed to attend training to prepare for becoming mentors. The training is generally one hour and are carried out a couple of times. In the training, we discussed what being a mentor is and brainstormed what kind of competencies would be required to help mentees out. Besides, we got some activities such as finding superpowers for each other through conversations among students and sharing our previous experiences that seem to be related to mentoring.
Mentoring training 2
This semester, I became a trainer who organizes training for fellow exchange students by utilizing my experiences from last semester. I collaborated with full-time students who joined Bridges by Mentors as trainers. We had several preparation meetings before training sessions and strived to provide useful training sessions to exchange students. For instance, we conducted a presentation about mentoring phases. I introduced the negotiating phase which mentors help mentees set a goal with the SMART method while aligning with our thoughts through communication. Being a trainer is challenging but this process has been growing me by thinking how to approach fellow exchange students in training sessions.
Field Trip
At the beginning of this program, the Field Trip provided by Bridges by Mentors was announced to all participants. Last semester, we went to Bruges, Belgium. This field trip was a three-day program. The primary part of this trip is discussing the way to make mentoring more effective by interacting with students in Bruges. Aside from the discussion, we talked about differences in students’ life in between the Netherlands and Belgium and the cultures of our home countries. It was very meaningful and a pleasure to meet students from different countries. Plus, the bond among mentors became much stronger by exploring the pretty city and experiencing the culture.
Mentoring Practice
After the field trip, we were assigned our mentoring practice based on the questionnaires to ask about our preferences. Mentoring practices are various. We chose one among some such as cooking, sports, and creating music with pupils who study in Leeuwarden. I selected the program where mentors join some classes of secondary school in Leeuwarden and guide them by sharing our experiences in social media and peer pressure, for example. It was very fun and both mentors and mentees learned a lot of things about each other.
Conclusion
Overall, being a member of Bridges by Mentors enriched my experience as an exchange. Before coming to the Netherlands, I was worrying about connections with other exchange students. However, the community of Bridges by Mentors became significant in my life in the Netherlands. Since I really enjoyed the experience that I had last semester, I decided to continue to be a part of it as a trainer. Although our program for this semester is still on the way, I have already been having a great experience and looking forward to the things that are happening from now on. As you already understand how I like Bridges by Mentors from the above statements, if you come to NHL Stenden as an exchange, I truly recommend you not to miss out on this precious opportunity!!!!