Learning outcome: 12.2

The student demonstrates his development regarding self-direction, resilience, drive and eagerness to learn as part of his sports identity

Learning as part of my sports identity. Where should I start… As said in the previous program learning outcomes, I like to learn and I am doing a lot of additional work and programs in order to achieve knowledge in the areas that my own school program doesn’t cover. Because I received my propaedeutic exam in one time, I didn’t had to resit courses from the first year. This saved me a lot of time in year 2 in comparison to my fellow students. Due to this reason, I had a lot of time (at least, I thought I had a lot of time) available for additional programs and courses. In September of 2021 I started with the first punch card lab of the Honours Program, which gave me the opportunity do learn new things outside of my own program and gave me the time to focus on sports photography and to see if this is something for me in the future. More about this story and my experiences during the Honours program can be found under the headline of Honours, Lab 1.

Because I tried to participate in a lot of additional programs, I created a list of things I started with during the last study year to develop myself in multiple areas and to learn more about my own sports identity:

• Hanze Honours Program
• EnRoute Erasmus+ Program
• Duolingo Spanish lessons
• Informational books
• AD sports newspaper subscription
• Grotius Program
• WhatsApp contact person Sport Studies
• John Schokker foundation???

Most of the programs or courses above I have already explained in other learning outcomes, but one thing that I didn’t covered yet is my wish to learn Spanish. In high school, I had Spanish for more than 7 years, but after those 7 years I kind of stopped with that learning process. After 1,5 years I already noticed that my level was decreasing, but because my wish is to study or live in Spain in the future, I wanted to improve my Spanish skills. After trying to find a program on the internet with no results because a lot of the programs were too expensive, I found Duolingo. Duolingo is a free online platform with an easy accessible app. This stimulates me to work on my Spanish in the buss, train or when I have a short moment free. For the upcoming period, I want to put in bit more effort and be a bit more structured in my learning process.

One other part that I didn’t covered yet, is the part of the informational books. I like to read when I have some free time, and the books that I currently read are informational books like biographies, sports history books or books written by old top athletes, such as ‘Drive’ from Mark Tuitert. This book is about the drive to be successful, but also a way of how to approach things and how to see the world a bit less stressful. I have a small list of the books that I want to read and the books I already finished.

All these additional programs, courses or own-directed learning processes helped me to become the sports professional that I am today. I experienced that my knowledge about a lot of sports, helped me to get in a conversation with different people and to create more insight how different parts of the sports world work. But also to relax me in a certain kind of way that I will find my place in this world and that there are so many opportunities and sports that I like. With this I can say that my professional identity grew during the last year. By having conversations with people from different areas of the sports world, I learned that in some way there is always a connection and that by having a conversation with this people you can develop you network and also your communication skills.