Giulia Caberlotto (AEGEE-Udine) wrote her thesis, in order to complete her studies in Public Relations, about AEGEE. She has been an AEGEE member for two years now and is currently the President of her local, an experience which gives her the sufficient knowledge in order to complete this task.
The AEGEEan: Hey, Giulia! How was the idea born to write a thesis about AEGEE?
Giulia: The idea was born because I had to find an argument for my thesis, obviously! And since I was running out of time, I thought that I had to find an argument that could inspire me and keep my motivation up… The choice was pretty easy, indeed, because AEGEE is a source of motivation itself. The difficult part was to adapt it to my field of studies [she smiles, ed.], therefore I have changed millions of focuses before finding the perfect one!
Which AEGEE event did you decide to use for your study?
This was the hardest part, to choose just one of the aspects of AEGEE… In the end, after consulting with my professor, I came up with the idea of writing about the Agora, specifically the one organised by AEGEE-Cagliari since I participated as a helper. I wanted to implement the follow-up of the event so I decided to create a survey and sent it to the people who participated. I decided to analyse it through the tools of internal communication, public relations and marketing since I studied Public Relations.
Can you tell us more about the structure of the thesis?
I divided the thesis into five chapters: the first three are theoretical, while the fourth is about AEGEE and the fifth is about the case history of Agora Cagliari.
In general, the first chapter is about the non-profit sector, the associations, the contribution of volunteers and the role of motivation in human resources strategies; the second one is about communication in this sector, primarily internal communication tools, while the third one is focused on PR and marketing tools for NGOs, with reference to events as a tool of internal PR/communication.
Regarding the survey, which categories did you use for the questions?
The questions were divided into macro-categories: evaluation of the communication tools (website and social network), evaluation of welcome pack and merchandising, questions about the event overall and the influence of promotion. I am so thankful to all the people that helped me out by filling in the survey.
What did the majority of the AEGEEans answer to these questions?
This is a secret I will never tell [she smile, ed.]
The answers were pretty positive, actually. I won’t get into details, but the evaluations of website and Facebook were very positive, as well as the ones of the event itself (more than 87% of people gave an evaluation between 4/5 and 5/5). The rest of my analysis was a combination of variables, so it’s difficult for me to explain it without having to show charts and diagrams.
Would your thesis be of any benefit for AEGEE as well, on the European or Local level?
It depends on what you’re expecting from it. Many people told me they wanted to read my thesis expecting it to be an AEGEE manual, but it’s actually focused on one specific topic. It could be useful, indeed, but you have to consider the general overview of the topic, the “AEGEE part” covers two chapters out of five as it is the practical case that fits the theoretical analysis.
You graduated in April! How did the professors see your thesis?
I graduated on the 13th of April! And that is the exact day in which, two years ago, I joined AEGEE, so it was a double lucky day for me [she smile, ed.]. During the final evaluation, when I had the chance to present my work, the commission seemed very interested and asked me many questions. In the end I got the maximum result, so I am extra satisfied with my research.
How are things going in AEGEE-Udine?
The antenna is growing a lot at the moment, we have a lot of fresh members because we really worked on promotion in March and April. Now it’s time to motivate and integrate the newbies.
Written by Gabriela Cioată, AEGEE-București