Assignment 5: EUP evaluation

Minor: European Union Policies. At my first hearing it seemed a very interesting minor even though I had no idea what I could expect. Nevertheless, I  still signed up for it and as the other minors were 100 percent boring according to my point of view, I thought EUP would be a good minor me. Unfortunately, at the end my expectations of this minor were not met. Still, because of a big letdown with a previous block of IBMS, I was not surprised by the somehow bad quality of EUP.

To make things different I will first mention about the aspects which I did like of the European Union Policies. The most important one is of course the EU trip. It was a good chance to experience the European Union as close as possible. We have seen the European Court of Justice, European Commission, European Court of Human rights and the European Parliament. Seeing and visiting all of these institutions was very interesting and also a fun thing to do. The EU trip was also a good opportunity to get better known with other EUP students resulting in a better group atmosphere throughout the minor.

Another thing I liked very much were the amount of classes, as there very little. Almost every 2 days of the week we had no classes. This gave the opportunity to study the theory and  work for a full day, but of course there was also chance for much nicer things to do.

Then the bad things about EUP. The first issue I want to mention are the classes. With classes I want to mainly refer to the Tutor group secessions and the trainings and lectures followed after to support the TG classes. The main purpose of the tutor groups is to activate a discussion between the students with an EU related subject. In most cases this was somewhat difficult to do, as we mostly did not have any background information. Instead the background information was given after the tutor groups took place. In my opinion this is wrong. I am more used to obtaining information beforehand and then having a to do an assignment.

Another big issue for me was the planning of the schedule. After the half of the minor this went from bad to worse. On some days we had 5 hours in between classes and what was even worse where the days in which we had 1 hour class. These classes were skipped for the most time as it was not worth the travel time.

With English it is a different story. The first half we only had classes related to the blogs. Even though I did not attend most of them, I heard from fellow students that the classes were bad after all. I think it would be better if we had made the blogs during class etc. This would give better view of progress but also would give the possibly to receive feedback at location. However , the second half was more useful. The debating gave us the chance to actually improve our English but also to learn to debate. I think these classes had very good added value to our EUP minor and overall course, which is IBMS for me.

Despite these issues , I am glad I took place in the EUP minor. It was a experience I would not like to miss.

Assignment 4: Credit Crunch

The Financial Crisis a.k.a the Credit Crunch. Something very bad that started out in the United States in 2007/2008 and affected the whole world economy in a very bad way. However, this year, early 2010, the European Union thought that the worse was over and that the Economy was recovering slowly. Now almost at the end of 2010, the European Union is in huge trouble. The credit crunch has caused serious issues to the European Union and its member states, which the EU thought would never happen when they introduced the Euro. The crisis itself did not had a direct impact on me. At the time it occurred, it was all over the news and our IBMS course even adopted the credit crunch in its courses. But besides that, I could not notice it that much.

The European Union that did notice it, received another big impact this year. One of the EU Member States, which is Greece , had created that so much budget deficit that it was near national bankruptcy. A company going into bankruptcy is mostly acceptable , but not when it is a whole Country. As a result the European Union had to bailout Greece by lending it additional money to recover itself. This was one solution , which was not based on EU law. When the European Union prepared and finally introduced the Euro, they made a special agreement which defined the maximum budget deficit a country could make. The so called stability pact was meant to prevent what had happened with Greece. The main reason that Greece even needed such a bailout is that the government was kind of lying about its budget deficit to the EU.

After the Greece bailout , another country got into serious trouble. Due to the credit crisis Ireland had pumped a massive amount of money into  the banks and nationalized the most of them to save the bank system of Ireland. This has gone horribly wrong and caused the whole country going into bankruptcy. I must be said that Ireland was ironically one of the richest EU members and now it is almost bankrupt and desperately needing EE help.

These two countries, with the help of the credit crunch, have brought the European Union in such a state where the Euro is near its end. Bailing out EU member states has caused huge pressure on the Euro that at this point, that even some of the European Union members are considering abolishment of the Euro or kicking out Member states. In the European Union view, this is a major problem mainly caused by the “financial crisis”.

Assignment 3: Commentary on article

http://www.nu.nl/economie/2402329/pas-wachttijd-betalen-helpdesk.html

First of all this blog assignment is based on a Dutch news article as it is a Dutch issue. However, it is one issue which causes some real irritation in society. Being put on hold by the customer service of a company for a very very long time and having to pay for it.

The article states a proposal made by the D66, PvdA and the CDA. These political parties want that companies can only charge customers on the phone after they are connected to the helpdesk. In the current situation, a customer goes through a lot of menus and then hears a most of the time a boring tune before there are even helped. Meanwhile of course the customer is charged for waiting and listening to the tune. Also within this proposal the parties mentioned that companies include additional information in their contracts about the quality of the helpdesks and the waiting times.

The reason I picked out this specific article is that I am aware of this issue for a long period of time and was surprised that even until now there was not a solution to this high charges problem. The article itself includes several quotes and opinions from members of the included political parties. Even though the article is also a bit small, there is still a structure visible with a introduction, body and a short conclusion. However, despite I think that this is a big issue, it is not relevant to me. I  believe that the usage of helpdesks by phone are not used that much by the younger generation but are used by the older people. The younger people tend to use the internet instead of calling some helpdesk operated often by other young people. Nowadays, more and more people use the internet including the old generation. Companies can make advantage of this by creating chat based helpdesks which are for free.

Assignment 2 : Going out in Roosendaal ?

Going out in Roosendaal, it is something hard to believe but not impossible. As Roosendaal is not that large of a city, the places to go out are somewhat limited. Therefore most of the Roosendaal youngsters go out in the larger cities around Roosendaal or even further away. .When it comes to myself I am not a type that hangs out every week at a bar or disco, I also do not drink or smoke so these spots are not my thing of relaxing and having fun. However, I will mention these go out spots in Roosendaal for any potential fun desiring Roosendaal visitors!

The first thing to keep in mind is that whenever you go out in Roosendaal, you are obviously going to get some nice unhealthy snacks at the Alanya fastfood restaurant. The Alanya is the most popular place to get your döner sandwich in whole Roosendaal. It is in the middle of the center and nearly 10 meters away from “ La Vie en Rose”  the most popular disco in Roosendaal. Another disco that is less popular is the “Midnight” , it is less popular but certainly not less fun to hang out. In addition, not so far from these discos, there are lots of cafes to choose from.

Besides the disco and café one can also prefer to visit a theater or  the Cinema. Roosendaal  has them both, they maybe small but it is better than having none. In case you decide last minute  to see a movie , it is possible to watch it in Roosendaal and by that save some travel time and costs. However, watching a 3D blockbuster movie is not possible in this city as the cinema is too small for it. For the more cultural person, there is always the option to visit the theater “Schouwburg de kring” as I mentioned earlier.

Besides theses options there is not much to do in Roosendaal. After some time it gets bored to everyone. That’s why the most of Roosendaal youngsters go out in the more larger cities.