Global Mind Monitor
GMM is a tool for students to reflect on their international competencies.
This tool allows students to watch over their development supported by educational activities.
In total, we will complete this questionnaire three times during the academic year:
before, during and after our stay abroad.
The results of the questionnaire are divided into four categories:
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My knowledge
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My drive
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My person
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My actions
In each category you will find an overview of your personal score compared to the scores of others who also took the test. With each graph you will of course get some more explanation about the different score levels and what applies to you.
Before my stay abroad
My knowledge
In this category, the focus is on knowledge. How do you estimate your knowledge and thoughts about culture, language and sustainability? How much do you know about other cultures? How are your language skills? And what are your ideas about sustainability?
Strengths
I attach great importance to values and norms, customs and rules. Both personally and those of other cultures. I can easily adapt to situations and also do my best to communicate if I disagree with something because of my own values and norms.
Challenges
Language is a weaker trait. Therefore, learning a new language is really a challenge for me. I am aware of this and try to communicate with the knowledge I have. Of course, I want to work on this so that I can express myself better in other cultures.
My drive
It's all about motivation in this category. To what extent are you motivated to work on your global competence? Are you open to making contacts with people from different cultural backgrounds than yourself? To what extent are you willing to cross borders (regarding your future career)? And what actions are you willing to take for the environment?
Strengths
I love taking adventures beyond my country's borders. Gaining new experiences, seizing opportunities, learning from them and making memories. Discovering the world little by little. I don't know yet where I will settle. I want to live in the here and now and see where it takes me.
Challenges
I haven't come in contact with people who have a different culture much yet, but am looking forward to this! I am curious about their way of life and to learn from this.
My person
Within this category you will find out a little more about your personality. What are your personal qualities and your views on culture? By using the “multicultural personality questionnaire” you estimate yourself. This in terms of your cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability and flexibility. In addition, the 'ethnocentrism' scale is used to assess the extent to which you use your own culture as a starting point to judge (people from) other cultures.
Strengths
In general, I find about myself that I can empathize well with others. This is because I am a social person and therefore interact with many people. Not having any prejudices is very important to me when it comes to meeting new people/cultures. And I absolutely do not place people/culture above other people/cultures. Every person is equal to me and no culture is wrong because they live according to their own way and that works!
Challenges
I am someone who cannot sit still and therefore take initiative very quickly which may make me seem a bit demanding even though I don't mean it that way. On an emotional level, I still have some work to do. By this I mean that I do not let others do me quickly, but that is because I keep my emotions mostly to myself.
My actions
This category also looks at your global competence, more specifically the active dimensions. How do you assess your own cultural behavior, as well as your international experience (both study-related and personal), the internationalization activities in your study program and your actions on sustainability?
Strengths
In my daily life, I try to do my part to protect the planet and the environment as much as possible. Living in a student house with others is already a very good exercise for that!
Challengers
I haven't lived abroad yet, but that will change in the next year. I am very much looking forward to living in another culture for a while.
During my stay abroad
My knowledge
Comparison with previous result
My cultural (self) knowledge has increased by half a point. This is because I spent a semester getting to know different people from different cultures and thus gained new insights about the values and norms in others' cultures. My English language skills remained the same which I personally did see an increase since I communicated with the other students in English. My French language skills did improve somewhat. On the other hand, my thoughts on sustainability have decreased slightly, which I did not expect.
Expectations
In Aruba, people speak 4 languages namely English, Spanish, Dutch and Papiamentu. I am sure that I will be able to work on my English language skills during my stay. And of course I hope to learn some Papiaments.
My drive
Comparison with previous result
In terms of motivation, there is little difference. I still have the same opinion, which is to live in the here and now and see where that takes me. My feelings towards sustainability did increase a bit, probably because I was more conscious of it during the lessons.
Expectations
My lifestyle will change as I stay abroad. This is because I will meet new people, but also have to adapt to the rules of the country and therefore may get tangled up with myself because of all the new stimuli. But this is a phase I will have to go through.
My person
Comparison with previous result
There are quite a few changes in this category. For example, my empathy for others, emotional stability and ethnocentrism are on the rise while my open-mindedness, social initiative taking and especially my flexibility are on the decreasing side. I think the stress of leaving on Erasmus played a major role in this. Because I started to question everything because of the ignorance.
Expectations
Moving to the other side of the world is quite a challenge! Hence, I think I will be mostly a wait-and-see at first, but hope to get out of this quickly. The more I feel at home somewhere, the more committed I am to helping others. Of course I would like to achieve this in Aruba as well.
My actions
Comparison with previous result
Again, we see that my points have increased. Because I am more aware of it through the lessons and try to apply this as much as possible in my daily life.
Expectations
My results will still change after I live in Aruba for a while. I don't know if they are environmentally conscious on the island. For example, I've already heard that they don't really do waste sorting there ...
After my stay abroad
My knowledge
Review
My cultural (self) knowledge has risen another point. During my stay, I was introduced to the Aruban culture that consists of a fusion of several other cultures. I was immersed in all kinds of new experiences. My English language skills improved considerably. In Aruba, I communicated a lot in English. You meet people from all over the world and everyone understands the English language best. I myself also found it easier to express myself about certain things in English rather than in Dutch. My French language skills deteriorated because they don't speak this language on the island. I also learned a tiny bit of Spanish and Papiamentu. Furthermore, my thoughts on sustainability have risen again. I have very often made myself the reflection “This can't be right, can it?”.
My drive
Review
I am more motivated now that I have lived on the other side of the world. The threshold to connect with other people and participate in projects has decreased. And I am definitely still open to possible collaborations in the future. Whether I will move abroad in the future, I don't know yet. First live in the here and now to see where that takes me.
My person
Review
My empathy for others has pretty much not changed. I often found it difficult to empathize with others because I was unaware of the situation or I barely knew the people. What has changed a lot is my open-mindedness. I easily approached others and had as few prejudices as possible. I also dared to take more initiative in different situations. At the beginning of my stay, I naturally took a wait-and-see attitude to first get a picture of how things were. In addition, I was not afraid to say how I felt about certain decisions/activities/.... There was a lot of space to talk about emotions and meet each person's needs. My flexibility dropped tremendously to my great surprise. In the beginning, I found it difficult to adapt and find my place, but afterwards I managed just fine. I was in contact with so many people from different organizations that I had to be flexible. Many also found this to be one of my greatest strengths. My self-centeredness also increased a little bit. But the result is still positive! I don't see my culture as superior.
My actions
Review
My behavior toward others has not changed. I find this somewhere positive because I treat everyone equally, regardless of their background. When asked about my international experience, something went wrong. I lived in Aruba for 3 months, this was my first time living in a country other than my native country. And I also have several friends from different cultural backgrounds than me. In addition, I consider my learning environment to be fairly international through the various activities. To conclude, I have become more aware that small things in daily life do contribute to protecting the planet and the environment. In Aruba they treat the environment very differently than here with us. I sometimes found myself amazed ...