My University Journey Has Begun

As a kid and teenager I had never dared to imagine studying at a university. But after I finished my bachelor in communication studies, I knew that my craving for new knowledge was not yet satisfied. In September, I started a new adventure. Studying at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. Here I was working towards obtaining my pre-master in Communication science, so I could eventually obtain my master’s degree. I am happy to say that as of July 2021, I succeeded at the first step of this journey by receiving my pre-master’s degree.

During this pre-master process, I was able to already enhance my knowledge of communication quite a bit. By taking courses like Digital Media Technology, Media & Influence, Media & Information, Media Reflection, Media, Entertainment & Culture and Media Usage I was able to dive deep into how communication plays a role in media and how one can influence this. This is also where I got more familiar with my passion for pro-social communication. The things I learned in these courses, will allow me to help others. By making use of influencing techniques, this new knowledge can help me spread positivity through communications.

Source: https://globaltalentmentoring.org/pi/radboud-university/

What was most new to me, was taking classes aimed at learning the ways of scientific research. Classes such as Introduction Communication Science, Qualitative Research, Methods of Communication Science and Statistics of Communication Science taught me how to conduct a respectable research in an ethical and efficient way.

Bron: https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Jeugdjournaal

I got to practice these skills with fellow students by conducting an experiment. We set up this experiment with the national news channel for kids in mind, Het Jeugdjournaal. We aimed to identify possible differences in the effect of active mediation versus no mediation in news consumption on children's news comprehension. With the findings of this study, we hoped to contribute to how parents assist their children in watching news, and thereby improve children's news comprehension. Our study showed that for our participants, active parent mediation did not affect children's news comprehension as measured by skepticism and perceived social resistance. In contrast, the age of the child did affect the level of skepticism; older children were more skeptical of news stories than younger children. Perceived social resistance was similar in both older and younger children.

It was great to get my first taste of conducting a scientific research. Luckily for me, in my masters study I will be able to conduct an even bigger scientific research whilst writing my thesis. I am greatly looking forward to starting my master studies in September 2021.