Reflection on learning during the BAPP course

Since I embarked on the BAPP course I feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster ride, full of ups and downs and no idea where it’s going to take me next. There have been so many times throughout the course where I have been absolutely engrossed in my work and have enjoyed the wonderful feeling of achievement and satisfaction after producing a good piece of writing. There have also unfortunately been times where I have succumbed to the dancer in me and completely doubted my capabilities, believing that a completing a degree was beyond me and wanting to give up at every hurdle. Now that finally the end seems to be in sight I am beginning to feel more motivated, though something tells me not to unfasten my seatbelt just yet!

From the moment I saw the required figure of 12000 words staring back at me from the WBS handbook that number became imprinted in my mind and for the past 5 and a half months has seemed to me to be the unattainable goal. With so much reading and researching to be done alongside, I found that I really struggled to get the ball rolling and start the project even though I became more anxious and stressed the more I procrastinated and avoided it. I have learnt that this is down to my low self esteem and have realised that I wouldn’t start the project because I was already afraid of failing. The task seemed so overwhelming and I let it swallow me up instead of approaching it rationally and breaking it down into a series of smaller attainable tasks. This course has not only helped me to identify my weakness but I hope that the completion of it will help me feel a sense of achievement that will be one step towards feeling more confident and self assured.

Choosing a topic to study in connection with my organisation provided me with an opportunity to look in detail at an issue of great personal importance. Reading and researching about stress in dancers and discovering the thoughts and experiences of others from interviews was an eye opening experience; one which has certainly helped me to learn about the causes, effects and solutions to an issue that has had much affect on my career so far. Learning that other dancers both experience and cope with stress provided reassurance that I was not alone in my feelings and that there are methods available to help cope with the pressures of being a dancer. As well as hopefully helping others to facilitate their needs, this project has enabled me to learn a lot about myself and even diagnose problems that I now know how to deal with. As a result of my research, I might be able to successfully combat stress related symptoms that could result in positive long term effects on my career.


Throughout this course I have also been able to develop a number of different skills that I never before possessed and that I am convinced will set me in good stead for the future. Far from being a computer wizard, setting up and learning to use and communicate through my blog proved to be motivational and extremely useful. I found being able to write about my progress and to read about that of others comforting, especially when I read that people were struggling with the same things I was and I wasn’t the only one. It also became my lifeline for finding out what had happened in the campus sessions as studying from abroad meant I was never able to attend. Being the only person out of my social group to be undertaking any academic study, the support of BAPP group who could understand the pressure I was under was very important and in hindsight I realise I should have made more use of our network. I also learnt about three writing styles, descriptive, marketing and academic. The latter in particular was a new challenge for me and introduced me for the first time to Harvard referencing, a skill I made great use of in my final project report. My research also required me to write a Literature review for the first time, collecting evidence from different sources and bringing them together in a single piece of writing. I was also introduced to new applications such as Google Docs, which proved to be a great resource and Delicious which, although not used extensively, will hopefully be useful to me in the future.

I am sure that after the relief of completing this course I will look back on a worthwhile experience and look forward to opportunities that it will facilitate in the future.