My name is Niklas and I’m here at TrainingMatchmaker.com in Belfast, Northern Ireland for 4 weeks to gain working experience in a different country as part of the Erasmus programme.
On my first day of work in Belfast, I met Chartered Marketer Christine Watson. She is the founder of TrainingMatchmaker.com and also my trainer for the next 4 weeks. She asked about my current job role in Germany and my career aspirations and allocated me the tasks of my traineeship and she also told me that I will spend time doing courses, either online or face to face – she advised me that there are thousands of learning opportunities available to me for free and tasked me to research the TrainingMatchmaker.com find a course portal to discover courses that match my interests as well as my job role.
My name is Niklas Hocke, I am from Germany and I am 23 years old.
I´m completing an apprenticeship as an administration clerk in Germany which I started in August 2017 and I will complete in July 2020.
Apart from working, I am a football enthusiast. I play football in a club and I watch it nearly every day and to support my football activities I run but also I like to play video games and table tennis.
Learning goals:
- To Explore Northern Ireland and Belfast. I want to learn as much as I can about the culture and the history of this country. Therefore I will visit some sights of Belfast and I will take tours. Trainer Christine advised me that she delivers tourism training as well as marketing training therefore my explorations across Northern Ireland can become relevant to business objectives in terms of the photographs that I have been asked to take and the experiences that I will have. I am tasked to create an Itinerary of things you can do in Belfast and across Northern Ireland like tours and events for example.The first place I am to go to is the tourist information centre called Visit Belfast and I have to create an itinerary of all the places I want to see and the things I would like to do before I return to Germany.
- To improve my English skills, spoken and written. English is a language, which is spoken nearly everywhere in the world and I need it for my school work, in my freetime (as I have a few friends who speak only English) and for future travels in other countries to communicate more easily with other people.
- To learn how to use website platform: WordPress. My trainer Christine Watson will show me how to work with this programme which is what the TrainingMatchmaker.com website is built on.
- Another task Christine has given to me is to write at least 2 blogs – a learning plan and a learning log. I have never blogged before but I’m excited to do this challenge and it will help me showcase my written English.
- To create a To Learn plan and blog. I have to research all the learning opportunities and choose some that total at least 16 hours to enhance my knowledge and skills. TrainingMatchmaker.com can lead me to thousands of different free courses! My research on the TrainingMatchmaker.com website portal has led me to a free online course called ‘Speeches and Speech Making’ by The Open University – it is one hour long. Some of the other courses available to me are too long in duration but I will continue to research and commit to completing at least 16 hours of learning and you can find out what courses I have finished from my Learning Log which will be published on TrainingMatchmaker.com on 2 August 2019.
- To take quality photographs. I plan to attend the free Today At Apple photography courses and photo walks organised by the Apple store in Victoria Square, Belfast. There are a number to choose from and they range from 30 minutes to 90 minutes long.
- On my introduction Christine told me to become a local guide on Google Maps and to contribute good photos from my explorations in NI – this can help other Google Maps users. It is another challenge for me, I don´t usually contribute to it, but I often use google maps. I´m about to take the first steps of this task and I´m always excited to do new things. Christine has signposted me to a blog written by another Trainee of TrainingMatchmaker.com – Ronan Tennyson which is a ‘How to’ on becoming a Local Guide on Google Maps.
- To making new friends while I´m here beacause here I have the opportunity to meet new people from different countries and practice my language skills. She pointed me to a platform called Meet Ups to try and find social events where I can meet like minded people.
My name is Niklas Hocke, I am from Germany and I am 23 years old.
I´m completing an apprenticeship as an administration clerk in Germany which I started in August 2017 and I will complete in July 2020.
Apart from working, I am a football enthusiast. I play football in a club and I watch it nearly every day and to support my football activities I run but also I like to play video games and table tennis. 
