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.

100 word summary of my project

My project explores how dancers within my ballet company experience and cope with stress. The study looks in detail at causes and effects of stress in 8 dancers and coping mechanisms used. Findings drawn from interviews revealed dancers encountered stress due to several causes. Moderate levels of stress sometimes helped although it was mostly interpreted as debilitative. Varied physiological effects resulted from dancers’ psychological stress. A lack of education on dance related stress was identified. Self taught coping mechanisms were described although some felt further education would be beneficial. Strong similarities in coping mechanisms discussed suggested their effectiveness. Improving awareness of these methods was recommended.

Delicious – A social book marking application

Delicious is a social book marking site that enables users to share resources online. It works in the same way as a traditional favourites bar except on the internet, allowing you to share sites of particular interest as well as viewing other people’s bookmarked items. Although I did not find Delicious to be of great help to me during the BAPP course I acknowledge that there could have been benefits to using this program.

Firstly, Delicious enables the user to save and store bookmarks on any computer with an internet connection providing easy access to bookmarked items when away from home or their personal laptop. It also enables the user to share resources with an online community and allows them to discover other interesting sites that have been bookmarked by other users. Delicious also enables you to tag your bookmarks with either key words or a description to help you organise and easily find them again. Using this site could be particularly beneficial when wanting to share resources with anyone from work colleagues to friends or family and saves time from copying and pasting URL’s.

Personally I found that I did not feel the need to use this site as I felt more comfortable using either face book or my blog to share particular sources of interest with a network of people I had already built up. There were also many people that I wanted to share resources with that did not have delicious accounts. I am however, glad to have been introduced to Delicious as I am sure in the future it could become useful to me.

Google Docs - a file sharing and collaborative wiki application

When I was asked to look at Google Docs as part of my BAPP course I felt slightly disheartened as my ability to use new computer programs successfully is somewhat non-existent. However, after many months avoiding the task I finally came to the point where I was in need of help with proof reading and checking through my project and sending emails with attachments was becoming quite messy. Although rather late on in the day, I have finally discovered how easy to use and helpful an application Google Docs can be.

Google Docs is essentially a word processor that allows you to store and create new documents online. This can be beneficial in many ways. With your documents or files stored on the internet, you can easily access them from any computer with an internet connection, allowing you to either view or edit your work away from home or your personal laptop. Google Docs enables the owner of the documents or files to share their work with others they wish to allow. The owner can also choose if those people can edit the document, which is a useful tool for anyone working on collaborative projects.

In particular I have found this application useful for sharing with family and friends to help me proof read and check through my project and also as another way to back up my work other than just relying upon a computer hard–drive or USB which can either be broken or lost. I also liked how easy it was for me to add people that I wished to share my work with. Simply typing in their email address and pressing the share button sent an email with a key to my document directly to them for easy and efficient access. The only hang up I have about Google Docs is that being on the internet I am always aware that my privacy could be invaded. This would prevent me from ever sharing any particularly private documents. However, I am surprised at how much I like the Google Docs application and am pleased to have been introduced to it. I hope and am sure that it will be of great use to me in the future!

Google Docs Trouble

I am currently trying to use google docs to edit last bits of my project but for some reason every time I open the document it only loads part of the first chapter. I know that the whole project is there because members of my family that are helping me to proof read have had no problem accessing all of the document. Any ideas on what to do?

Questions on Chapter 2 of the project report

Today is the beginning of my weekend, (strangely I have Sunday and Monday off) and I'm really hoping to use my spare time to try and get Chapter 2 under my belt.

I was just wondering if anyone could clarify what the difference is between an aim and an objective. I have already discussed this with a few friends and my family and so far there are a couple of interpretations.

One interpretation is that an 'aim' is something that might not directly result from your project but something that it might contribute towards, for example......'I aim to help dancers all across the world find ways to cope with their psychological stress'.
The same people said that their interpretation of an 'objective' is something that might result directly from my project, for example.....'My objective is to increase my understanding of psychological stress so that I can advise the dancers in my theatre about it'

Another interpretation was that the aims were what might result directly from my project, and that the objectives were the things I would do to achieve the aims, for example......'My objective is to interview dancers in order to learn more about their personal experiences of psychological stress'

Anybody have any ideas?

I also wanted to quickly ask what the handbook means when it asks you to give a 'research statement'. Does this mean the title of your project?


Any thoughts or advice is welcome!

Thanks,

Laura

Hi everybody,

I hope that this blog entry is finally the start of me getting back on track with the degree work that I have so badly neglected recently after having a rather dramatic and hectic start to my new season at work. After speaking briefly to Paula the other day she encouraged me to get back on my blog and it feels good to write on it again and get back in touch with you all.

I'm actually a little bit stuck at the moment and looking for a bit of guidance on how I should word some of my interview questions. I have actually written them all already and gained consent from my participants so I should feel ready to start, but for some reason I'm just not sure if I am happy with constantly repeating the phrase 'nerves and stress'.

My project is aiming to find out why dancers get nervous and feel stressed before rehearsals and performances and what can be done to help them cope with it. However, even though 'nerves' and 'stress' can be closely linked with eachother, they are also quite different issues and I am worried that my interviewees will either decide to focus on one or the other when answering my questions. I was wondering if it would be easier to have a single, more inclusive term like 'emotional stress'. Do you think this would work, or is it too broad a term and I should just stick with what I had before?

Any suggestions or new ideas are very welcome!!

Hope everyone is getting on ok and not too stressed just yet!

Laura