We started the day off by joining the online walk-in hour with Jolijn and Nils. We wanted to ask a few questions about our timeline and about our cost benefit analysis.

What I really appreciate about these walk-in hours, is that the teachers really take the time for us. Although it is only one hour a week, we are usually one of the only ones attending it and therefore we get all the attention.

Jolijn gave us some tips about the timeline and emphasized that we really need to make it useful for the stakeholders. Thus, we need to switch our perspective and try to put ourselves in their shoes. For the cost benefit analysis, she advised us to look into forecasting and base our graphs and analyses on that.

The rest of the day, we worked on investigating Excel analyses and doing research on how to implement this into our Excel file.

Additionally, we wrote out a script for our video which we are going to shoot on Wednesday and we discussed the other preparations.

I will talk to you tomorrow!

Amanda

Today we had more of a chill day. This was the only day of the week that the weather was really nice and therefore we decided to each work on our own schedule. In the beginning of the day, we made a plan of what needed to get done. This included mainly implementing Brigitte’s feedback and getting to know the program of the website.

We separated the tasks and let everyone decide themselves what time they wanted to work on it today, so we could also enjoy the outside for a bit if we wanted to.

I decided to do most of my work in the morning, so I could meet up with a few of my friends in the afternoon. I really enjoyed taking this day a bit more slowly and I also appreciated working on my own for a day, since working in a group all the time can get a bit exhausting.

After the weekend, we will continue working on the website and start brainstorming about video ideas. Namely, we need to make a 5 minute video in which we ‘sell’ our solution to our stakeholders. We decided that we are going to meet up on Wednesday to shoot the video and I am really looking forward to this!

Have a nice weekend 🙂

Amanda

Today we continued working on step 7 of our alternative assignment, which is all about the implementation of the solution.

Yesterday, we finished giving answers to the various questions that are associated with implementing our idea. Today, we started looking at websites we could use and we started playing around a bit with the designs. Sofie found a website called Wix.com, which is similar to WordPress, where we are able to develop our own website. I feel like this can be a good way to visualize our idea, however, it does require me to look into it a bit more and get used to the program before we can really start designing it.

Additionally, we had our weekly meeting with Brigitte today again! She gave us some great tips and advice that we immediately started implementing after our meeting. Because we are approaching the end of our assignment, we agreed on the deadline of the 24th of June to send our final assignment for her to check.

Some tips for improvement she gave us were:

• What is it about the combination of services that makes our solution unique? What is the added value?
• When working on graphs to analyse the trends of the cost benefit analysis, make a best case and worse case scenario to create a clear image for your stakeholders
• See if you can make connections between all the interviewees that were included every time during the design thinking process

Furthermore, she gave us some general advice on the lay-out of our document. For example, it would be clearer if we perhaps moved all the conversations with our target group to the appendix and just used the conclusion of it in the general text. Using more tables and graphs would also make the assignment easier to read instead of just having pages full of only text.

Tomorrow we will keep working on the website and implementing the feedback we got from Brigitte.

Amanda

Today we finished answering the following questions:

• Explain the problem and the causes and consequences of the problem to them
• Quantify the (negative) consequences of the problem
• What part of the problem do you want to solve
• How do you want to solve it
• What actions/steps do the subjects and stakeholders need to take to implement the solution
• What will you do yourself to contribute to the solution
• What are the costs and benefits for your solution

The answers to these must be included in the short summary about our solution.

Additionally, we finished brainstorming about the format we want to present this implementation plan in. We decided to try and mimic the platform we want to create in the form of a website. So, this would mean that we show the different services and also create a page where we will give the answer to the questions above. Of course, we are not skilled enough to develop the actual website. However, we think it is a good idea to make our idea of the solution more visual, for our subjects as well as for our stakeholders.

We started on this website but we will have to look into it a bit more the rest of this week to figure out how to make it look professional.

Furthermore, we made sure we prepared for tomorrow’s meeting with Brigitte by writing down our questions for her and sending her our progress.

Today, I also had a meeting with my assessor, Afsoon. I requested this meeting because I wanted to update her on our project and I had a few questions regarding the actual assessment that we need to hand in. I was not sure how strict the guidelines were regarding the page limit and how we were supposed to fit all the necessary content in it. Additionally, I asked Afsoon if it was necessary to complete all the courses I had planned to do for myself before starting this semester. I have come to the realization that I might have overestimated my time and therefore, I decided to drop one course. This still allows me to achieve all my PLOs because it was just something extra I’d liked to do. I have yet to decide between Excel and Spanish, but I am firstly focused on finishing the alternative assignment.

I was very glad Afsoon was able to answer all my questions and it made me feel more calm.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today was a very productive day! It made me really happy to have finished the first draft version of our cost benefit analysis. As mentioned in my previous blog posts, we had a difficult time quantifying the costs and benefits. We sent out multiple emails to various companies, asking about financial advice regarding our project. Although we did get plenty responses back from people that were very excited and interested in our solution, they were also not fully able to give a specific answer regarding our financial questions. I do understand this because it is a hard thing were asking. Therefore, what we ended up deciding on was making an estimate guess about the contract and deducting our total costs from our benefits to decide how we are going to divide the money on the different marketing costs.

We sent our cost benefit analysis over to Afsoon and Tariq who had both expressed to be willing to help, which I am very grateful for.

Getting enthusiastic responses back from the companies we approached was also very gratifying and made me feel appreciated. I am very happy with the problem we chose to investigate because it so close to people’s hearts and I feel like it would actually be extremely beneficial for our society.

Furthermore, we started looking into the final step of the alternative assignment already, which is step 7. We did some brainstorming on how we would like this part of the assignment to look like and we will continue with this tomorrow.

Talk to you then.

Amanda

Today we started fresh after having a chill weekend and looked at our cost benefit analysis again. We received a few emails back from the companies about our financial questions. However, it seems that a lot of people do not completely understand that it is not an actual business inquiry and they have responded with a ‘not interested’ email. This is very demotivating because we have tried so many different approaches to gain some financial insight into our solution.

Nonetheless, we decided that if we do not receive a helpful answer, we will make the cost benefit analysis based on estimates and ask Afsoon to check it for us. We do not want to stay stuck at this one specific part of the assignment because we have a lot more to do.

Furthermore, we focused on editing all the parts of the assignment that still needed our attention again. For example, we left the answer of the question about our stakeholders in the problem investigation unfinished, because we weren’t knowledgeable enough about it back then. Right now, we do know the answer and were therefore better able to answer it. Throughout the document, we had a few of those instances that needed our attention.

Additionally, we started on reading the complete document and taking out spelling and grammar errors. This will take quite some time so it is good that we start now.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we had our weekly meeting with Brigitte. We expressed our frustration and struggles about the cost benefit analysis with her and she gave us some tips on what costs we can already quantify. It was good to gain some new perspectives again because we have been very focused on one specific cost.

Additionally, we discussed some general parts of the project that still need improvement. Here a short list from my notes from the meeting:

• Explain the difference between introverts and extroverts and how this applies to your solution
• Clearly describe what makes our solution unique
• Give a conclusion of the SWOT analysis and focus on how we can perhaps improve our weaknesses/threats
• Make the solution visual

We started incorporating her advice immediately after the meeting.

Furthermore, I finally finished my psychology course this week! I completely forgot to update you about this because we have been so focused on the cost benefit analysis, however, I finished the final assessment on Wednesday. I am very happy to have finished it and I feel like I am a lot more knowledgeable about consumer behavior now. It makes me excited to start applying this knowledge in the future.

However, since this course took me so much longer than expected, I feel a bit worried about finishing the other two courses I had planned for myself. Therefore, I asked Afsoon to have a meeting next week to discuss this with her and see if it’s perhaps possible to adjust my personal learning plan.

I will update you after the weekend!

Amanda

Today we had the walk-in hour with Jolijn and Nils. I secretly like that it’s never that busy and we are most of the time the only ones online, because it allows us to get all the attention and time to ask our questions.

They advised us to start emailing companies with a legit proposition for a business partnership, instead of emphasizing on the fact that it is a hypothetical solution.

After the walk-in hour we immediately started preparing a draft email that we sent to roughly 20 companies. We are hoping for a quick response.

Furthermore, we focused on preparing for tomorrow’s meeting with Brigitte. We want to be able to at least show some progress, so we focused on other parts of our assignment that still needed improvement. We made a SWOT analysis, I wrote a short piece about the already existing ideas that are similar to our ideal solution and we focused on the questions that we are supposed to answer regarding the costs of the implementation and the benefits of our solution. Lastly, we made 3 tables that briefly summarize our cost benefit analysis so far.

I am happy with our productivity today and I feel well prepared for tomorrow’s meeting.

Speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we kept working on the cost benefit analysis. We are finding it hard to make progress because we feel like we are a bit stuck regarding the costs. To seek some extra help, we also sent a message to our previous Risk Analysis lecturer Tariq Abbasi. He is very knowledgeable about finance so we figured he might be able to give some advice. We have yet to receive an answer.

Furthermore, we started writing down a list of questions for tomorrow’s walk-in hour so that we can come prepared.

Additionally, we began editing some parts of our document that we marked during the process to still be adjusted. Starting on perfecting our assignment now will save us time in the future.

I found today to be a bit frustrating because we did not make much progress on the cost benefit analysis. It made me feel helpless and I found it hard to stay motivated. However, the good thing about this experience is that as a team, we really try to keep each other productive and aren’t afraid to reach out for help when we need it. If such a situation would arise again, I hope we will act similarly or perhaps approach even more people to ask for help.

Speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we focused again on the cost benefit analysis. We did research on all the costs and benefits and started working on a draft analysis. However, we find it really difficult to come up with the actual costs associated with our solution, because it is all a hypothesis.

Therefore, we send Jolijn a message to ask if it is possible to arrange another walk-in hour this week, since it was a holiday yesterday and the walk-in hour was cancelled. She responded really enthusiastically and was happy with our proactive attitude. There is now another walk-in hour planned for Thursday, so we will definitely attend that.

Some feedback we received from Brigitte during our meeting last week was that we do not ask critical enough questions and sometimes even (unconsciously) direct them into a specific answer. Therefore, we revisited our target group to talk to them again about our most promising solutions and focused on receiving not only positive but also negative feedback.

This was really insightful and it helped us realize wat the advantages and disadvantages of the solutions are.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we mostly finished processing all of Brigitte’s feedback into our document. Right now, we are already focussing on the second to last step of the project, which is about the costs and benefits of our solution.

I feel like this is the hardest part so far and I feel a bit uneducated regarding this bit. To help myself stay motivated, I plan on doing some extra research this weekend to refresh my finance knowledge.

We are planning to make a cost benefit analysis for our solution and searching for potential templates to use, but I notice that this is quite a struggle. Therefore, I sent a message to my assessor (Afsoon Qutbyar) to ask for some help and if she would be willing to check our first draft version. Kindly enough, although she did not have a template for us since a cost benefit analysis is very subjective, she did say she would be willing to give us some feedback, which is really nice.

We will continue focussing on this cost & benefit part after our long weekend, since it’s Whit Monday on the 1st of June. Therefore, I will update you on Tuesday.

Amanda

Today we had our weekly meeting with Brigitte. She always helps us look at our project from a different, more critical perspective and gave us some great tips again this week.

Since we had worked on amplifying and elaborating on our solution, her advice was mostly directed towards this. Some of the tips she gave us were:

• Don’t only mention the negative consequences of the problem but also the positive ones
• Also ask for critical feedback from your target group
• Include your introvert vs extroverted research on feelings of loneliness in your solution
• Make a SWOT analysis

I really appreciate these weekly meetings since it always helps us move on to the next thing and gives us extra motivation. We started making some adjustments and improvements of our project according to her feedback this afternoon and will continue with this tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we finished the last question of step 5 and we plan on asking for help on the 3rd question tomorrow during our meeting with Brigitte.

It feels good to know that we are making good progress and are already at the second to last step of the whole assignment. However, we all feel like this step will be the most difficult, since all of our finance knowledge has faded a bit over the last few months from not having to use it that often anymore.

To freshen up this knowledge, we dedicated today to doing more research about a cost-benefit analysis and finding out (approximately) what costs would be associated with our picked solution.

With the help of jump.nl we now have a helpful overview of the costs of our app. Additionally, we brainstormed about a few creative ideas to help reduce the costs of our app and what stakeholders would potentially be interested in investing in our solution.

We will continue with this tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we finished writing down our conversations with the 20 people from our target group about our most promising solutions. Having these all together in one place makes it much more clear and easier for us to draw conclusions.

The rest of the day we focused on the next step of our project, which is answering the following questions:

• What problem is the solution actually solving?
• Who benefits from the solution?
• How can benefits be quantified in (cost) savings or quality (of life)improvement?
• Who is willing to pay for the solution?

We finished answering question 1 and 2 but noticed we are struggling a bit with the last two but we will continue working on this tomorrow.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

We started today off by visiting the virtual walk-in hour organized by Jolijn and Nils. I really appreciate these hours because they are helpful when we run into problems or doubts.

Before the meeting started, we made a short list of questions regarding:

• The mindmap. We followed the instructions from the alternative assignment guide but were not sure if we were on the right track.
• Whether we have to mention every already existing idea that is similar to our solution
• How we could apply a cost-benefit analysis to our own solution

Nils went through all the questions with us and Jolijn told us she was proud of how far we had already come and how proactive we were handling the assignment. Such acknowledgements are really nice to hear from time to time and I felt really motivated to keep going afterwards.

In the afternoon, we had a call with Bas Heerkens, who was our learning circle teacher at the beginning of the year. I remembered he has a psychology background and therefore invited him for a meeting. Although he did not have any actual personal experience with students coping with loneliness and talking about this directly with him, it was nice to talk about his know-how and understanding of the topic and he gave us some really good suggestions of approaches we could use for finding the ultimate solution.

Additionally, we finished talking to our target group of 20 people to check our most promising solutions.

I felt like today has been really productive and I’m excited for the rest of the week.

Amanda

Today, as mentioned in my last blog, I talked to people around me for inspiration for ‘offline’ solutions. This helped me look at our problem and solution from a different perspective, since it is easy to fall in a rabbit hole of ‘online’ solutions.

My dad had a suggestion I really liked about Animal-assisted therapy, which helps people with not only physical but also mental illnesses/issues. I believe that this could be a great way to deal with feelings of loneliness too.

Together with Viragini and Sofie, we had a video meeting where we shared our ideas and discussed our next steps. We wrote down a list of our most promising solutions (at least in our opinion) and we started on the next step; which is talking to 20 people about these solutions.

We will continue with this on Monday.

I really felt like talking to other people in our environment has helped us snap out of the tunnel vision we had and I am excited about our new ideas.

I will see you after the weekend.

Amanda

Today we had our meeting with Brigitte. We talked about the adjustments we had made, following her feedback from last week, and about our brainstorming sessions from the beginning of this week.

She was really excited with us about the brainstorming process and understood where our ideas were coming from. However, she also noticed that we were kind of stuck in a tunnel vision, thinking only about ‘online’ solutions. This was a really good point she made, because we did not think of ‘offline’ solutions yet. The reason for this is because we believe that it is easiest to reach our target group through online platforms.

Brigitte agrees with our point of view and thinks that this will probably be the chosen solution in the end. Nonetheless, she advised us and wants us to also start thinking of other solution that do not necessarily require an online presence.

This is what we will work on for the rest of this week. I already know that I’m having trouble snapping out of this specific mindset, so therefore, I have resolved to talk to my parents and other people close to me these next couple of days to ask them about their ideas for a solution. This always helps me to look at the process from a different perspective.

It is Hemelvaartsdag tomorrow, which is a national holiday in the Netherlands. Therefore, I will continue my blog on Friday.

Amanda

Today we proceeded with the brainstorming process. We decided to use the brown paper method, which allows every one of us to first think individually of solutions, and then ask for feedback from each other. This allows us to get more creative.

We made a lot of progress today and have come up with multiple solutions that we think would suit the problem perfectly and would genuinely help people. However, because we had this one specific solution in mind from the beginning (an app), I noticed that I found it fairly difficult to think of completely other solutions during the brainstorming session. My mind was kind of stuck in a tunnel vision.

Luckily, Sofie and Viragini had some really creative ideas that helped us form our best solution thus far.

We have our weekly meeting with Brigitte tomorrow, where we will show her our ideas and progress and where the will give us feedback.

I will speak to you then.

Amanda

Today we focused on making a plan for this week and adding additional research information that was published over the weekend. Friday afternoon, I actually received a call from Jolanda (the founder of JoinUs who we talked with last week) to ask if I wanted to do an interview with NOS about loneliness amongst youngsters and the sudden change of plans that counts for a lot of students. It was a really cool opportunity , and although they already found another participant in the mean time, I was flattered that she thought of us.

That article from NOS has been published last Saturday, where they talked about the research from I&O which we have already incorporated into our literature. However, it was really interesting to read about the perspectives from people that were already struggling with mental health issues, and how this corona crisis has affected them.

We decided that this week we will focus on brainstorming for a solution and doing research on solutions that are already out there. The brainstorming part is what we started with today.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we finished our conversations with students to check our assumptions and we made a final list of requirements for a solution. This last part was fairly difficult, since we found it hard to think of requirement for a solution without having an actual solution in mind yet.

We also approached a teacher from school, which we know has studied psychology, to ask him for an interview as well.

Furthermore, we wrote down a description of the characteristics of our target group, we thought of some potential stakeholders for the solution and we described/explained into the root cause of our problem. Additionally, we added some information to our research part of the project, since there are new articles being published every day about our solution. This is on the one hand very helpful for us, but on the other hand, I find it a bit difficult to keep up with, since we constantly need to adjust our information. However, this is very understandable since this problem and situation are so new.

I will see you after the weekend!

Amanda

Today we started off with a meeting with Brigitte. We sent her our updated document yesterday so she could have a look at it beforehand and she had some truly great points of improvement for us. I really appreciate her critical questions and her advice, because it makes us check everything (at least) twice and makes sure we do not deliver a lousy job.

She told us that we did a good job on narrowing down our target group, but we still need to work on our quantification, which we also realized. Additionally, she told us that we can’t just say an assumption is true of false, because it is often subjective. We will also take a look at this again.

After our meeting with Brigitte, we had our third interview of the week, which was with Carin Cuijpers this time. Carin is the founder of GeluksBV and provides trainings and masterclasses in the training of happiness. This was a fascinating conversation. For starters, because I didn’t even realize before that you could actually train happiness. She told us that it is all about the skills and habits you adapt into your life. We also discussed with her the connection between happiness and loneliness and her experience with it this corona crisis. She definitely feels like they go hand in hand together and acknowledged the fact that students will feel more lonely right now. This is partly because she has done previous research about students and the pressure of workload among them.

We worked out the interviews of this week in our document and will continue to take all of their advice into account tomorrow.

I will update you then.

Amanda

Today we finished our list of assumptions and discussed these with fellow students/friends/classmates. It was really interesting to hear their view on our assumptions and it was a good way to look at them from a different perspective.

Furthermore, we had our second interview with an expert today. We talked to Bart Oosting, who is a student psychologist at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. This conversation was really fascinating and honestly quite thought-provoking, since he mentioned some things we did not think of ourselves before. For example, from our research so far, we concluded that almost 40% of the youngsters is struggling with loneliness during this corona crisis. Although this fact is true, he pointed out to us that this does not mean that these feelings of loneliness have mental consequences for most. In fact, he told us that most youngsters will probably come out of this without any mental consequences/illnesses, since this feeling of loneliness is temporarily. However, who we should look out for is the group of youngsters that were already struggling with feelings of loneliness or other mental illnesses before this quarantine. They can spiral down into a really negative state and often don’t let themselves be heard.

We also talked about some of our other assumptions to him and he really took his time to help us and answer our questions.

Tomorrow we have another interview planned and we will have our weekly meeting with Brigitte.

Speak to you then!

Amanda

Today we had our first interview with an expert! Jolanda van Gerwe was willing to take 15 minutes out of her day to talk to us and answer some of our questions, which I was really excited about. She is the founder of JoinUs, which is a Dutch organization that helps youngsters with feelings of loneliness, varying from minor to severe conditions.

It was a really informational conversation, since she works exactly in the field that we are investigating. I especially found it interesting to hear her talk about the adjustments they have done in these times of crisis, since they normally organize physical group meetings throughout the country. They switched to online WhatsApp group chats and she talked us through some of the pros and cons she has noticed so far. She told us that one of the benefits of having an online community, is that people are more likely to join, since the boundary is not as high because they don’t have to physically go somewhere. However, on the other side, this same cause of not having to physically go somewhere has caused people to have a harder time building stronger connections with others, which has resulted in people being less involved or quitting sooner.

These results are really helpful to us and our potential solution.

Furthermore, we worked on our assumptions and started looking into the requirements that our solution would need. Regarding the assumptions, we noticed we did not really make many during our research so far, since we have been warned about this from the beginning. We discussed this ‘issue’ with Jolijn and she told us that we could also make a list of the assumptions we have in general, or especially before starting on this project.

I will update you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today it’s Monday, which always feels like a fresh start of the week for me. We started today off with the walk-in hour to ask some questions about the quantification of our problem, since we find this a bit difficult. Jolijn also told us, just as Brigitte did, to narrow down our target group and start from there. She gave us the advice to focus for example specifically on the students in Utrecht, which makes it a lot easier to quantify. Additionally, she advised us to perhaps make a general assumption, which you then can adjust along the way.

After the walk-in hour we took her advice into account and started working on quantifying our problem. However, we are still struggling a bit coming up with exact numbers. We therefore decided to keep it as it is for now, and come back to it later when we have some more information.

Furthermore, we started working on our assumptions today too. The goal is to make a list of our assumptions and check these with at least 20 people.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we approached quite a few experts via LinkedIn. We mostly searched for student psychologists and other experts in the field of loneliness, because they fit our problem best.

We already got some responses and are excited about the other answers to come.

I can already tell I really enjoy this step of the process, because I feel like it will provide some new insights and perspectives to our problem, which will maybe even help us with our solution.

I will see you after the weekend!

Amanda

Today we mainly worked on narrowing down our target group. To do this, we had to thoroughly take a look at our research and make a smart decision about what group of people fits our problem/solution best.

Furthermore, we took into account the advice Brigitte gave in our last meeting and started working on adjusting some parts of the assignment.

Tomorrow we will reach out to experts via LinkedIn and try to plan some interviews for next week.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we had our second meeting with Brigitte! We prepared really well and sent the document of our progress to her the night before, so she could already read through it a bit.

Our main concern / struggle had to do with quantifying our target group. We still find this difficult and are planning to attend next week’s walk-in hour, but Brigitte already gave us some really intelligent insights that we did not think of yet ourselves.

She told us to truly narrow down our target group to make it easier for ourselves and she also sent some documents and tips on strategies like design thinking.

Right now we are going to take her tips and advice into account, adjust our work so far and start working on the next step; which is checking our assumptions.

I will speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

It’s liberation day today in the Netherlands. However, it is spent as no other liberation day has been spent before. Namely, without any big celebrations. I really miss going out and having fun with friends and also feel like it has really been getting to me today, seeing all the throwback pictures from the last years.

However, I want to try and stay positive and focus on our assignment. I am really happy to be working together with Viragini and Sofie because I feel safe giving and receiving any kind of criticism/feedback and I feel like the communication is going very smoothly.

We mostly finished the problem definition and investigation today. However, one thing we are struggling with is defining the quantity of our target group. We asked Jolijn if she could explain this part a bit more, which she did, but still left us with some questions. Therefore, we decided to join next week’s walk-in hour to really discuss our problem.

Overall, I am happy with the progress we are making! I will update you tomorrow, after our phone call with Brigitte.

Amanda

Today we mostly worked on the problem definition, because this is what Brigitte asked us to focus on. We made a lot of progress and our goal is to finish it tomorrow, so we have enough information to discuss during our weekly phone call which will happen on Wednesday.

Additionally, I finished the first module of my psychology course. I thought this meant I was ready for the test. However, it turns out that there is another module before the test. I did not expect this and am a bit disappointed in my own mistake, because I felt ready to finish the course.

Nonetheless, my aim is to finish it as soon as possible so I can focus my full attention on our alternative assignment.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

It’s May already! Although we are in quarantine, I feel like the last few weeks have passed by so fast.

Today we all finished our individual research on the problem definition. What is left to do now, is to combine our parts into one coherent text.

I am glad we are staying productive and I am happy with our communication. In the beginning, we had to find a balance between everyone’s work schedules. We made a schedule for when everyone is available and have been keeping to it great thus far.

I hope you have a nice weekend!

Amanda

Today we focused a lot on our problem definition. We mainly communicate through WhatsApp video calling, and also did that today. The research we had done thus far was already quite extensive, but we decided to each do some more and also start writing our findings in our own words.

After having done this, we met online again to discuss our findings. We are not quite finished yet but I feel like this has been a good start.

Our goal is to finish the problem definition tomorrow and we also want to plan another meeting with Brigitte for next week.

Speak to you then.

Amanda

Today we had our first meeting with our mentor, Brigitte! It was really nice, and I believe that she can be a great asset and help to our team. She asked critical questions and I got the feeling that she can be quite strict when needed, which I think is something we need to stay motivated and productive.

I also matched with her on LinkedIn, because she told me she has some experts in our field that could might help us. We are planning to write to them tomorrow.

For now, we are focusing on finishing our problem definition. That is our goal for this week.

I will speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

We found a mentor! She is called Brigitte and she is an ex-colleague of my mom. She has a background in psychology and is currently a study advisor, which perfectly suits our assignment.

We planned our first meeting with her for tomorrow to discuss the assignment and hers and our expectations.

Today I finished the analysis. I did a few tests in SPSS, but ended up using Excel for the final analysis after all.

We also talked to the first 20 people to ask some questions about our problem. We still need to approach some experts, but we hope that Brigitte might help us in this department.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today is the celebration of our King, therefore, we take today a bit slower than usual.

Nonetheless, we have started working on our analysis of the questionnaire! I have played around a bit with SPSS over the weekend, and hope I can make a sufficient analysis with this program. However, we have only used this program once during our studies, without any tutorials on it. Therefore I am afraid it will be difficult to use.

In spite of this difficulty, I will try my best and otherwise I will resort to using Excel and doing the analysis per case.

The good news is that we have received a total number of 69 answers over the weekend! This even exceeds our aim of 50, which is very helpful in order to draw a proper and suitable conclusion.

The analysis is not quite done yet, but I will finish this tomorrow.

Talk to you then!

Amanda

Today we already received about 30 responses on our survey and we have started to analyze these already. As mentioned in my previous post, it looks very promising and we hope that our hypothesis is true.

Furthermore, we are looking into the best ways to analyze our data. The platform we used for our questionnaire is Google Forms. However, although it is very useful that Google provides graphs of the answers, I already noticed that we cannot divide these answers between the different age groups. Since this is what we are specifically looking for, I want to brainstorm about other tools to make this analysis easier and more appropriate.

Our plan is to have the analysis done on Monday, so we will continue then.

Have a nice weekend!

Amanda

Today we sent our questionnaire to friends and family. Our aim is to reach at least 50 responses, preferably ranging from all different age groups, to get the best picture possible.

Additionally, I posted our questionnaire on my LinkedIn page, which Viragini and Sofie then could share. I already notice that this was a good step to take, since people are responding positively under my post and sharing it.

So far, it is very interesting to see the different answers given to the questions and it looks like it will confirm our hypothesis. However, we are nowhere near 50 replies yet, so we will leave it online for a couple of days.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today we perfected our questionnaire. It consists of 15 questions, ranging from very specific ones to broader questions. However, every question is multiple choice, so that the threshold to fill in the survey is lower and it will only take them about 2 minutes to fill in.

We also took a step back and looked at the whole assignment to see what approach we need to take right now. We decided we want to confirm our hypothesis (Younger people suffer the most from loneliness during the corona crisis) first before we actually start talking to people, because we need to know who to contact.

Tomorrow we will start spreading the questionnaire among our friends and family, but also on our online network such as various social media platforms.

I will talk to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we worked on our alternative assignment again. After having done the first step of our literary research about loneliness, we decided to make a list of questions we could ask when contacting people.

I want to look into how to make a eligible questionnaire that is valid to use for research tomorrow, but our list of questions already looks promising in my opinion.

We also thought about who could be our mentor for this project and planned on asking around in our networks ourselves. We do find this fairly difficult because we don’t want to be a burden or bother anyone during these already hard times. However, we realize that it would only require an hour a week and it would really benefit us to have some guidance throughout this process.

Tomorrow we will perfect our list of questions and also start making a list of our first group of 20 people that we can talk with about this problem we want to investigate.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today I had a video call together with Sofie and Viragini. We decided that our problem will focus on ‘Loneliness amongst (insert target group) during the corona pandemic’.

Our next goal is to do research on who is affected most by the corona crisis right now with a direct result of loneliness and find out our target group. Therefore, our research question (might be adjusted later on) will be:

What target group experiences the most loneliness during the corona pandemic?

We started right away with our research by finding multiple sources on the topic. In total, we have found and read about 25 articles all about loneliness amongst different age groups and we also already did some research about already existing solutions to loneliness.

Although we found plenty of sources about elderly people experiencing loneliness, we found out that they will most likely not be our target group because they were also already experiencing loneliness before the pandemic. And since our research question is specifically focused on the corona crisis, our hypothesis right now is that young adults have been the most affected by the corona crisis with a result of loneliness. (The exact figures will be found in our final assignment).

This fact was really interesting and surprising to me because it was not what I had expected. My guess is because the media does not focus that much on this age group when talking about loneliness.

After having done literary research online, we want to focus on contacting people and asking about personal experiences.

This will be our goal for tomorrow. Talk to you then.

Amanda

Today, as a group, we worked on brainstorming some more and gathering information on the various problems we are interested in. We are all on one line regarding our interests, which is very helpful during these discussion sessions. Right now, our focus lies on more social problems. Specifically, we are interested in either the current loneliness during the corona crisis or domestic violence and if/how it has increased during the corona crisis. We find it easier to focus on problems that have arisen during this crisis and are a well spoken topic right now.

After the walk-in hour from yesterday, we do realize that this problem is still too big. Therefore, we want to take some time this weekend to each think these topics through and decide on Monday what our definite research question will be.

My only concern is that we won’t know beforehand if could come up with a suitable solution, because our assignment requires us to research the problem first. I will discuss this concern with the rest on Monday.

Have a nice weekend.

Amanda

Today we had the question walk-in hour, together with Jolijn. The three of us joined this video call meeting and asked our list of questions, which gave us a lot of clarity.

To summarize, we found out that the assignment should take up as many days as our internship would have still had (so we could subtract the amount of working days we already had with our internship), we should focus on one specific target group and not make the problem too big in order to come up with a suitable solution and that there is no word limit to the assignment.

We think we figured out the PLO question ourselves already, but if we still end up having some doubts we will ask again.

I now feel like we can truly start making some progress and move from the planning & analyzing the topic stage of the assignment to the drafting stage.

I feel relieved to have an answer to my worries and excited to work on the assignment.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today I worked on getting some more structure for myself. I recognized that I was feeling very chaotic in my head about everything I have to do, which I think also has to do with the unclarity we still have about the alternative assignment. Additionally, I am not quite sure if I also still have to do my other courses that I planned in my PLP or if these PLOs are now included in the alternative assignment.

Luckily, the walk-in hour is tomorrow already, so I look forward to that. Furthermore, I wrote down a planning for next week so that I can start with a clear mindset.

I want to start working proactively on the alternative assignment and complete my psychology course. These are my goals for next week which I think are realistic. If I notice that I finish these early, I want to start working on my next course. However, to keep the pressure and stress off myself, I like to start out with just two tasks.

I will talk to you tomorrow after we had the opportunity to ask our questions.

Amanda

Today Viragini, Sofie and I discussed some of the questions we still had and problems we stumbled upon so far with our alternative assignment. Therefore, we decided to send an email to our semester coordinators and assessors about these questions to get some more clarity. However, the response was quite vague and we were mainly directed towards the document guide. It even raised some more questions because we were told our assignment should take up 75 days, which would mean it ends past the due date to hand it in.

Luckily, we received an email today directed towards everyone for a question walk-in hour. We will definitely attend this and have come up with a list of questions we would like to ask:

• How much should the workload be increased when working in a group?
• How many words should the final assignment consist of?
• How specific should our problem be?
• How should you write out your PLO? Why two documents?
• 75 days?
• How specific should the target group be?

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today I had a video meeting together with Viragini and Sofie to discuss our plan of action together. We reviewed at the assignment, talked about all our concerns and questions we still have and send some emails out to find the answers to those.

We also had a brainstorming session to come up with a few problems that we are passionate about and would like to investigate a solution for. Immediately our hearts went out to the problems that have arisen due to the current corona crisis. Personally, we want to focus on the more social problems because that is what we are most passionate about.

Our goal for this week will be to have a definite problem. Therefore, we need to do a lot of research to find out what suits us best.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today I thoroughly read the alternative assignment and made the decision that I want to work in a group. Together with Viragini and Sofie, who are also in my peer group, we will form a group.

Although I like my independency and I found it a hard decision to make, I chose to work in a group after all because I really need some motivation right now. I am having a difficult time dealing with this crisis and trying to keep myself accountable, therefore I think working in a group will give me more motivation to keep responsibilities and make progress.

This Monday we will start brainstorming about various problems and discussing the assignment. I am excited to start and hope that this will bring some more structure to my days.

See you after the weekend.

Amanda

Today I finished the fifth lesson of my psychology course, which was about marketing environments and segmenting the market. It went in depth on the application of consumer behavior which was really interesting.

I am enjoying this psychology course and am looking forward to the next session. It is really insightful and I am sure that it will come in handy in my future. Today it also talked a little bit about how it is linked to the marketing strategy and I hope to learn a bit more about that, since this topic is highly related to my studies.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today I worked on doing some more research on my psychology theory. At the end of the fourth session, the lecturer actually gave some references to books and articles she recommended. However, it is a bit difficult to get my hands on these books right now and there are no e-book versions available.

Nonetheless, there is enough information I can find online. I stumbled upon an interesting article by Gregory Ciotti about various ways on how to convert customers into using more psychology. (https://www.helpscout.com/consumer-behavior/) My favorite finding was about labelling your customers. Labelling people is big issue and controversial topic nowadays. However, this particular study showed that labelling customers (in a positive way) can result in a higher turnout. People like being part of a groups that imply some superior quality or level of status that has their approval.

This finding has actually also given me some new insights in how I can accomplish PLO 8, because although I do not have an internship anymore, it is common knowledge that labelling people has resulted in ethical/social issues for many companies. Therefore, I find it appalling that there is also a positive side to labelling people.

I want to look more into this and come up with some more sources in order to successfully write about this PLO.

Speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today we finally received some news about the alternative assignment, which consists of actually two options. One option is a guided alternative, the other one is fully free. I was really happy and relieved that the management provided us with an alternative so that this crisis will not result in a study delay.

Right now I want to thoroughly read through my options and decide whether or not I want to make this alternative assignment on my own or in a group. Both have upsides and downsides so I find it a difficult decision to make.

I will keep you updated this week.

Amanda

Today I worked on my third class of my psychology course which was about buyer roles. I gained some insight into the five different buyer roles (initiator, influencer, decider, buyer and user) and found out how this affects consumer behavior. This was very interesting and made me curious about other researches that have been done. Therefore, I decided to look some up to learn about the theory from a different perspective.

One interesting research which I found, which was a little bit off topic from today’s class but still relevant to the course, was about the relationship between compulsive purchases and the price of a product. This intrigued me because I feel like it’s very relatable/recognizable in today’s society. However, I was not able to read the full article without spending money to purchase it, which I was not willing to do.

Hence I would like to do some more research on this topic tomorrow my own and perhaps even start with the next lesson. Talk to you then.

Amanda

Today I planned on starting the third lesson in my psychology course, however, I was feeling very stressed out about my Personal Learning Plan and how I was supposed to achieve all my PLOs without having an internship.

Therefore, I reached out to my assessor to ask her for some advice and to find out if there was any news about the alternative assignment proposal. We had a phone call and I found out that the management of International Business is working hard on coming up with a proposal right now that still allows you to attain the PLOs without having an internship. This put me to ease a little bit because my main concern was obtaining a study delay.

She advised me to keep working on the ‘green’ part of the PLP for now so that I keep myself busy and can already achieve some learning outcomes.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today I continued working on my PLO3: ‘Formulate evidence-based conclusions’. By following this self-study psychology course I want to relate this theoretical knowledge to my business experience/knowledge to gain a better understanding in consumer habits and learn how to draw conclusions.

I made some exercises on the theory I learned about yesterday, which was a good way to practice my newly gained knowledge. I recognized that I didn’t remember everything, so I watched the class again just for revision.

Tomorrow I will start working on the third lesson which is about ‘Buyer roles’.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Amanda

This day I worked on the second lecture of the course ‘Defining Consumer Behavior’. It explained the three components that correspond with consumer behavior, namely cognition, affect and behavior.

It was a very interesting course and tomorrow I will make some exercises on it. I like that it helps me put my marketing knowledge to the test, which I learned about in my first year of International Business.

See you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today I started with my psychology module ‘Introduction to consumer behavior’. I completed the first course where they discussed the learning outcomes:

• Define consumer behaviour
• Describe the application or consumer behaviour
• Describe the evolution of consumer behavior as a field of study
• Describe the nature, scope and application of consumer behavior
• Describe the interdisciplinary nature of consumer behavior

The first class was about defining consumer behavior which was very interesting.

Tomorrow I will learn about the nature and scope of consumer behavior. Talk to you then!

Amanda

Today I made a schedule to start working on my PLO’s. So far I have only made it for this week, since I’m not sure what the upcoming weeks will look like and whether I have found a new internship or if I can start working on an alternative assignment.

This week I will focus on a psychology course about an introduction to consumer behaviour. I am very interested about this topic and therefore also excited to start!

Until tomorrow.

Ananda

Today I started writing some emails asking for an internship to companies that I’ve noticed are still very occupied with work during these times of crisis. Thus far I don’t have a response.

I heard from the fast track about an alternative assignment for this semester for which I now have my hopes on, since I’m afraid it will be extremely different to find another internship.

Additionally, I have read through my PLP again and decided that I will make a schedule for myself on Monday.

Speak to you after the weekend.

Amanda

After an extremely stressful 48 hours of traveling, I am now back in the Netherlands. I felt like everything that could’ve possibly went wrong, indeed went wrong. Luckily, my actual flight back to the Netherlands went through and I am now reunited with my family. I still don’t really know how to feel about the situation, as I do realize I am safer at home, but also really regret not having been able to at least start my internship.

I took the beginning of this week off to really handle my stress and to come to the realization of the quick turn of events that has occurred this past week. Today I sat down to look at my personal learning plan and to see what I can work on without having an internship.

I already started looking for another internship, mostly on LinkedIn, but have realized that this is really really difficult. Most companies right now are firing people instead of hiring, and the ones that do offer internships require you to be available for at least 6 months.

Although this kind of demotivates me, I will keep trying. Additionally, I reached out to the group of fast track students that I heard were working on a draft proposal ask the HU for an alternative assignment. I read the proposal and I am really enthusiastic about it, so I hope this will work out. This would also sooth my nerves regarding the trouble of finding an internship.

Lastly, I would like to mention something else I’ve realized today about my PLP. Although I am really bummed out I am not in Mexico right now doing my internship, a lot of my personal goals can still be accomplished without an internship. The situation right now is, at least in my eyes, a prime example of an unfamiliar & unexpected environment. I want to motivate myself to try to see things from the positive side and work hard to still obtain all my credits.

I will update you tomorrow on how life’s going.

Amanda

Today I prepared the last things for my flight back home. I had so many plans and things I wanted to see here in Guadalajara, but unfortunately, almost everything is closed down. I can’t even go to a parque to study.

I will begin packing this afternoon and start accepting the fact that I need to get home. I have double feelings about it. On the one hand, I was just starting to get adjusted to Mexican culture and the way of living here, but on the other hand, I am really scared of what will happen if I stay here and the country goes in lockdown. Therefore, I think it will be good to head home.

See you next week.

Amanda

Today is almost over and I’m still in Guadalajara. I explained that I booked a flight ticket yesterday to fly out today to Amsterdam. The ticket was paid and everything, however, we never received a confirmation email. Just before I went to bed, I finally received an email saying that the booking company had made a mistake and had let me pay for the ticket without there actually being any free spaces available on the flight.

I did not know what to do and thought I would be stuck here forever. My mum said she would figure something out so I still set my alarm at 5am in case I needed to catch my flight to Mexico City.

When I woke up this morning, I got the news that my friend Semira was actually so worried about me that she discussed things with my mum and together they had booked a new flight for me this Sunday. That is the earliest possibility. Although this flight is really expensive, I am glad and grateful that everything is now arranged and that I will (hopefully) be home by Monday.

My roommates told me ‘home is where you make it’, and I agree with this. However, in such times of chaos and uncertainty, I also believe that home is where my family is.

Today I also arranged a Skype meeting with my internship supervisor and the International supervisor of ZF. I told them about my situation and that the embassy is demanding people to get home as soon as they are able to. I was nervous to bring them this unfortunate news, since they were counting on me and I was also really excited to start. Luckily, they were really understanding and kind about the situation. They also agreed with me that this is the best solution right now.

The international supervisor from ZF has even arranged a taxi to come pick me up and bring me to the airport this Sunday, and I met with her this afternoon at the bank to obtain this month’s salary and my housing reimbursement.

I feel much more relieved now that everything is been taken care of and I am happy that I can go back home.

Speak to you tomorrow.

Amanda

Today the absurdity continued. I was up early this morning to try and arrange a flight. Everyone from back home was stressing me out a lot which made me even more urgent to book a ticket.

I was making calls with the embassy and discussing back and forth with my parents and friends on how to handle the situation.

At first, my parents and I wanted to wait a little to see how the situation in Mexico would evolve and develop, but in the evening we decided to just book a flight immediately. We heard from contacts at KLM and the embassy that if I don’t leave now, it will probably take weeks to get me back. Additionally, I will probably not be able to start my internship because at that time things will have escalated in Mexico as well and I would most likely need to stay home.

My flight is now booked for tomorrow. I fly at 10am to Mexico City and at 23:25 to Amsterdam.

Updates to come.

Amanda

Today was absurd. It started off exciting, as I got to be a part of the workshop that started the cost reduction project of my internship through a Skype meeting.

However, early in the afternoon, I received the news from the Netherlands that the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs has marked all countries in the world orange/red and they are requesting every Dutch person to return to the Netherlands if possible.

This made me feel really upset and confused. I am just starting to get used to the rythm, the way of living and my surroundings. Just when I started to feel like I’ve found my place, it all turned upside down.

Tomorrow I will arrange my flight back home. I’m also stressed out because all this chaos will now cause in a study delay. I would’ve expected the HU to be somewhat considerate about the situation, considering it’s force of majority, but that’s unfortunately not the case.

There are a lot of different things going on in my mind right now, so I apologize if this is not coherent.

Updates to come soon.

Amanda

Today is Benito Juárez’s birthday in Mexico, which is a national holiday where everyone is free from work. Therefore I was able to enjoy a long weekend of exploring the city before it’s time to get to work.

I had contact with my supervisor about working from home. Initially, the company said this would not be possible because I won’t be able to have access to the system without being in the office.

However, after having a good call with my supervisor today, he agreed on sending me some documents regarding the project we will be working on, and I will be able to join two Skype meetings tomorrow.

I’m really excited about this because this means that I will not have to extend my trip or get into any other difficulties regarding my internship duration. Notwithstanding, this counts when the corona virus doesn’t also escalate here.

One downside is that both meetings will be primarily in Spanish. However, I will try my best to follow most of it and will ask my supervisor for a summary afterwards.

I will give an update about how it went tomorrow!

Amanda

Today is Benito Juárez’s birthday in Mexico, which is a national holiday where everyone is free from work. Therefore I was able to enjoy a long weekend of exploring the city before it’s time to get to work.

I had contact with my supervisor about working from home. Initially, the company said this would not be possible because I won’t be able to have access to the system without being in the office.

However, after having a good call with my supervisor today, he agreed on sending me some documents regarding the project we will be working on, and I will be able to join two Skype meetings tomorrow.

I’m really excited about this because this means that I will not have to extend my trip or get into any other difficulties regarding my internship duration. Notwithstanding, this counts when the corona virus doesn’t also escalate here.

One downside is that both meetings will be primarily in Spanish. However, I will try my best to follow most of it and will ask my supervisor for a summary afterwards.

I will give an update about how it went tomorrow!

Amanda

Today I received the unfortunate message from my company that they want me to stay in self quarantine for two weeks because of the Corona virus as a precaution policy. I feel like they are afraid of all Europeans currently. This means that I can only start my internship Thursday the 26th of March, instead of upcoming Tuesday.

This made me feel disappointed because I was excited to start working and meet new people. I’m not sure how I’m now going to fill in the next two weeks. I want to go sightseeing, but I’m not allowed to go near any big crowds.

I hope the good thing about this experience will be that I have to start being creative to keep myself busy. My supervisor told me he will have a look to see if there is any work I could do from home, but he is not sure if this will work because I won’t have access to the systems. Otherwise, I can perhaps start doing some of the courses I planned on doing after my internship.

My main goal is to try and stay positive, because there really isn’t anything I can do about the situation. The spreading of the virus is out of my hands. I’m just hoping that I can stay here in Mexico and won’t have to fly back early.

I will keep you updated.

Amanda

Today was a successful and unsuccessful day at the same time. It was successful because after almost 30 hours of travelling, I made it to Guadalajara, México.

I arrived at 1:30 in the morning in a hotel room and planned on moving this Saturday, however, I got lucky and was already able to move in later in the afternoon. After having moved in, I went to some shops and explored the neighborhood for a bit. Later in the evening I socialized with my new housemates.

On the other hand, this day was unsuccessful regarding my self study topics. Although I spoke Spanish for most of the day and got to really practice my speaking and listening skills, I didn’t come around to actually studying vocabulary or grammar topics.

This made me feel unproductive and a bit disappointed, because my day didn’t go as planned. However, as mentioned before, the good thing about this experience is that I got to put my knowledge to the test. I felt really accomplished when having a successful conversation with someone, for example in the airplane and at the supermarket.

Although this day had two sides to it, I wouldn’t change it if I could go back, because I also felt relieved, having moved all my stuff into my semi permanent home (for the coming three months). Nonetheless, next time I could try and make a clearer schedule for myself to keep me aligned with my plans.

See you tomorrow.

Amanda

My day consisted of again improving my Spanish. Because I leave for my internship tomorrow, my mind is mostly focused on that.

However, by keeping in contact with my supervisor and the host of my accommodation, I can immediately put my Spanish into practice. Although this is scary, I also felt really fulfilled when being able to keep up with the conversation.

Today I focused mostly on different tenses of the futuro and I also used these a lot when talking about my internship, because this also takes place in the near future.

Tomorrow my full day will consist out of traveling and I will not have any wifi, therefore I won’t be able to upload a blogpost. However, I will fill you in about my day on Thursday.

Amanda

Today, 9th of March 2020, has consisted out of planning for my internship, combined with practicing my Spanish.

Because I’m doing my internship in Guadalajara, I plan on improving my Spanish while I’m there. Being in daily contact with Spanish speaking people, while also teaching myself new vocabulary and grammar with the help of my Spanish books, will help me reach my personal learning goal of being able to be confident in my Spanish speaking skills.

This first week I plan on refreshing my current Spanish memory. Today I have gone over the Presente, the Perfecto and the Indefinido, and I have practiced these with the help of some exercises.

I noticed that it took me some time to really understand the tenses again, therefore I want to practice them some more in order to fully be able to use them properly.

Hola a todos,

I am Amanda Tankink, a second-year international business student at the HU. I am currently still in the Netherlands, but I am excited to leave this rainy weather and start my internship in Guadalajara, Mexico, on the 17th of March.

This blog will be used as a daily journal to keep you updated on my progress regarding my personal learning outcomes/goals.

See you soon!