On my first day of work experience, I attended the C4Confluence at The Alveston Manor Hotel. I started the day by greeting people as they arrived and marking them in. Once everyone was in, I joined in with the activities.
Morning sessions
The first thing we did was go and speak to someone we didn’t know. We had to introduce ourselves to each other. We did this with 3 different people, although it was a bit daunting at first, it was nice to chat to people and it felt good.
After that, there was a talk about how to look after yourself and understand your needs. The speaker mentioned Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits. We worked through a sheet that showed us how to support ourselves better. We also learnt the difference between things that are urgent and things that are important, which helped me think about how I can use my time better than I do, like planning my revision.
Next, there was a session about wellbeing. We learnt about how you need to be connected to others to be healthy and achieve happiness and longevity. After the talk, we went outside for about 20 minutes and did an outside activity:
- First 5 minutes: Walk around and take in everything around you.
- Next 5 minutes: Slow down and really focus on small details.
- Then 5 minutes: Notice creativity and beauty in your surroundings.
- Final 5 minutes: Think about a question or thought as you walked.
I found it useful to be able to calm myself when I feel stressed and something I will keep doing.
Afternoon sessions
After lunch, we did a rotation of three different activities.
The first activity was colour therapy. There were lots of colourful bottles, and we had to pick the one we felt most drawn to. We took our bottles outside, sat down, and did some mindfulness with our eyes closed. Afterwards, we got a sheet explaining what the colour we picked meant. It was interesting because most of us felt the meaning matched something we needed more of in our lives. I found this useful as it highlighted what you needed instead of you wondering and has given me a goal of what I am going to focus on.
Next, we did some meditation. We started with breathing exercises to help us relax and calm down, then moved into some yoga poses. At the end, we did a reflection exercise to help us feel grounded. This made me feel really relaxed and calm, although I did feel a bit tired afterwards because it was so relaxing. This was good as it gave us multiple different ways to relax and ground us when I lose focus.
The final session was about positive psychology. We were given 10 positive emotion words: inspiration, amusement, serenity, awe, interest, love, joy, hope, pride, gratitude. We had to choose a few we felt we already had, and a few we thought we were lacking. This helped us think about what we could focus on more in our lives to feel happier and more balanced. It was very good as it highlighted what we wanted more of and made us feel more gratitude for what we already had, like the colour one.
At the end of the day, we did a wrap-up of the day. Then we filled out some feedback of what we thought about it. It was an interesting experience, and I learnt a lot. Overall, the day was different and a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I learnt some things to help me and spoke to met some nice people.