Coaching

As a student the TU/e Bachelor College gives you a lot of space to create your own studies based on personal interest and ambitions. A coach will help you with making these choices.

During this decision process you will receive coaching from a lecturer from your major. Your study coach will talk with you to reflect on expectations, prospects, successes and difficulties, and help you to find the optimum match between your ambitions and your specific degree program. The final responsibility for your decisions rests with you, but your coach is there to help you.

Besides the study coach, you also be assigned a student mentor, who you will see mostly during the first semester (quartile 1 and quartile 2). He or she will help you with the practical matters that you have to deal with relating to your study. For example, where you should buy books, what is the best way to study and how to find your way around student life.

You will be responsible for the choices you make, and that responsibility requires an active approach when it comes to: 

• Conducting the actual discussions
• Preparing for and documenting of the discussions and
• Actively working on discussion points between coaching sessions

What you get out of a coaching discussion depends on what you put into it. Below, you will find advice on what you can do to ensure the coaching discussions help you to progress through the decision process.

Communicate your expectations and define your aims
Lecturers differ from each other in terms of how they coach students. Students differ from each other in terms of what they want and what they need in order to make choices. That is why it is important for you and your study coach to communicate your expectations to each other: what sort of support do you expect from your coach, and what does your coach expect from you? It is also important to agree on what you will discuss during each session, and what the aim of the discussion will be. 

Progressing through the decision process
When you make choices you will progress through a number of  phases in the decision process. It has been agreed with the study coaches that you will go through the entire decision process twice in Year 1: 

the first time to choose the two electives for that year, and the second time to choose (provisionally) all the electives for your Bachelor program. These phases will help you to prepare for, and conduct the coaching discussions.