My name is Jeremy Ng. I am from Malaysia, and I was part of the 2020/21 International Foundation Programme at the University of Kent. To be frank, my overall experience pertaining to the programme has been positive.
Academic support was one of the outstanding aspects which the programme has to offer. Any concerns related to my assignments and coursework were thoroughly clarified via the illuminating discussions conducted within the weekly seminars, workshops, and tutorial sessions. After receiving personalised and constructive feedback, I was able to rectify my misconceptions and make improvements. The support provided by my module conveners were notably helpful and valuable. Not to mention my academic advisor, who provided insightful comments regarding my progression throughout my journey. As a result, I was able to keep pace with the program and maintain progress. Without the guidance and support from my module conveners and academic advisor, perseverance would be challenging.
This journey of mine was not only enjoyable but smooth. I am satisfied with the programme as it has provided a smooth transition towards the first year of my undergraduate studies. It bridged the gap between secondary education and tertiary education. Amongst all modules, there were two which I found particularly useful during my first year, namely the Foundation Project module and the Academic Skills Development module.
In terms of the Foundation Project, the purpose of this module was to craft an essay of our choice, meaning that everything had to be started from scratch, including coming up with an essay title. Essentially, research had to be done on an individual basis, whereby research proposals will then be presented to everyone in class afterwards. It may sound like tedious work, but as a matter of fact, these are extremely useful skills especially for essay-based assignments which we may highly likely encounter throughout our undergraduate studies. The skills learnt in this module perfectly align with the objectives of some of the group projects I have encountered thus far. In my case, I was able to apply the necessary skills to my first-year modules. For one of my group project assignments, several generic themes were assigned to us rather than specific essay titles. This was when the knowledge acquired in the Foundation Project module proved to be useful.
Another crucial skill was the Harvard Style Referencing, gained from the Academic Skills Development module. I find it particularly useful for writing university-level essays as most assignments require the use of in-text citations. As a result, writing my first essay assignment during Stage 1 felt less challenging as I was already familiar with the Harvard Style Referencing.
Overall, the programme has been invaluable for me as the academic support offered by the programme was ample. Having undergone the International Foundation Programme, I realised I was able to garner an understanding of what to expect during my undergraduate studies.