Why I Chose SENI at Northampton
Rhian Lewis talks about her passion for the subject and why she chose to study at Northampton.
My name is Rhian Lewis and I am in my second year of studying Special Needs and Inclusion. I have always had a passion for working with individuals with disabilities and knew that this was the career path that I wanted to go down. It is really hard to decide on what university to go to but once I read about what other students had said and the opportunities that are available to them I knew that this was the right university for me. This course gives me endless opportunities to broaden my knowledge of the wide field of SENI; it also enables me to be passionate about what I believe in and it also gives the opportunity to have discussions in class which means that we can learn from our peers and understand why some people believe in different things which I think it an important part in becoming an effective practitioner.
This course has also given me the chance to visit different countries to see first-hand inclusion is different parts of the world. In my first year I visited Romania where we visited local schools and NGOs which really opened my eyes to what inclusion is like in a different country and I really felt that I learnt a lot from this visit and everything I saw and learnt there will stay with me for a long time. In my second year I also visited Belgium where we liaised with the university in Ghent and we had the opportunity to spend a day at a local school to view the teaching strategies and how they adapt to children with special needs; this was a really valuable opportunity which I learnt a lot from.
In addition, I am also spending five weeks this summer in Hong Kong where I will be representing our course by teaching English at a summer school which I am so thrilled to be a part of and I feel so incredibly lucky that my university has given me an opportunity which will sculpt me into a more independent and cultural individual. Through my university course we were also given an opportunity to take part in a BSL level 1 course which 5 of us are completing. I am thoroughly enjoying this course and I love that I will be able to have conversations with people who use BSL to communicate; I am already thinking that I will complete BSL level 2 during my final year next year to explore this fascinating language further. I would recommend this course to anyone; we explore such interesting topics, are given lots of opportunities and have a fantastic set of tutors who want the very best for us and will always be there for help and guidance which for me has made a massive impact.
