Weekly column

To reflect on inspiring or confronting lessons and valuable or unexpected experiences during ‘engineering for sustainable development’ students are invited to write a weekly column (about 400-500 words, individual).  So every student will write 7 columns in total: 6 with each week (also when you couldn’t attend, you write one) and the final concluding one at the end of the Texel week.  Columns will be posted in personal 'created by' collections. After you've done so, you can add your colums to the set of columns of the week in question. 

A column is a recurring small opinion article as often is published in a newspaper or magazine. What differentiates a column from newspaper articles is: that a column is journalistic and creative in character and regularly published; personality-driven by the author; explicitly contains the author’s opinion or point of view often reflecting on a current event or experience. So every week in a column you have to share how the  topic of the week (experience or idea from literature, research activities, lecture, visit or otherwise) is related to your perceived or expected role as a sustainable engineer, attitude, disciplinary knowledge or the like.

Tips for writing a column:

1. Start from a small observation - like something that felt uncomfortable or considered remarkable, something that sticks to your mind, an innovative thought or the like.
2. Be aware of the readers: students, academics, experts and artist who visit the TX project web site.
3. Find and interesting topics or angles to reflect on and to draw in the reader. Share your experience or observation from the course with readers in a fascinating way; from an unexpected angel, contra intuitive experience or the like.
4. Keep the topic small and to the point.
5. Be prepared to do some extra research on the topic, to make sure the details are correct.
6. Write a convincing argument. That’s beyond making just a statement.
7. Make sure that you column concludes on the topic it started with.

Must read:http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/06/26/why-engineers-see-sustainability-differently

More examples:http://toponlineengineeringdegree.com/?page_id=98