Annemieke Wargers

Graduation project Human Movement Sciences in Perth, Australia

I am Annemieke Wargers, a second year student of the Master Human Movement Sciences. I am currently in Perth, Australia, to do my graduation project. The next 8 months I will do my research here and share my experiences of doing a part of the study abroad!

When I started my Bachelor in Human Movement Sciences, I always wanted to do a part of my study abroad. It seemed fun, interesting and an educational experience! Since this was hard to achieve in the bachelor, I decided to do it in my Master. I am interested in children and youth with movement problems, so that is why I had sent an email to Marina Schoemaker telling her about my plan and asking whether she had some connections in Australia. And why Australia? I had read that a lot of human movement research is performed there and, of course, because it is such a beautiful country!

It has been a year since the contact was made with my supervisor in Australia, Fleur McIntyre. From the first contact to finally departure, it is mainly arranging everything for my trip. What kind of research will I perform? But also, where am I going to live? Can I request scholarships? What kind of visa do I need for this internship? On beforehand I knew that I had much to do and it mainly comes down to your own initiative, but sometimes it is just a lot. In the end it all worked out well and that is why I am here now, in Perth!

Especially the first week after I arrived here, it took me some time to get used to everything. I have a room on a campus of another university, Murdoch University Village. The first week it was still very quiet in the village, slowly all new students moved in their rooms and there were not that much activities being organized yet. Therefore though, I did have enough time to explore the area, get used to the weather (30°C is quite hot compared to the Netherlands), to recover from my jet lag and to look around at the University of Notre Dame, where I will do my research internship! The university is in Fremantle and by bus it takes me only 25 minutes to get there. Fleur gave me a tour through the different university buildings and introduced me to many colleagues. Everyone is very nice and positive and pleased that I come to help with the research all the way from Groningen! After the first week, there were more activities organized by the village and it was way easier to meet new people! Although sometimes it is strange that I am almost the only one going to another university, it is very nice to meet a lot of people here. BBQs, kayaking, walking around the city and beach days, that is how I started my time here in Australia! Not bad, if you ask me!

Besides all these fun activities, it was also time to start the research! My research is part of the AMPitUp program. This is a fitness and strength training program for young people with movement problems aged between 12 and 18 years. On Monday and Thursday they come to the university after school and get individual training from students of Sport and Exercise Science. They do this for 13 weeks per semester en can continue the program as long as they want to, until they turn 18. For some participants this is the first semester, others have joined the program already for a number of years! I will use questionnaires to investigate the effects of the program on the well-being of participants, so it is more the mental aspect. Probably I will do some other data analysis as well, since there is still a lot of data available from the past years. The first week of the program was mainly about observing the training, students and participants. Get to know everyone and dive into the program a bit more. It is so nice to finally see the trainings in real-life, after I have heard and read a lot about it! I am enthusiastic about the program myself and so far enjoy doing this research. As far as I know, we don’t have any program like this back in the Netherlands, so there might be a future for it…

Anyway, I am looking forward joining this research, want to see a lot of Australia and make beautiful memories! I will share my experiences in this blog. Do you have any questions, about my trip or your own study period abroad? Let me know!

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