Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Dominic Dimian presents himself.

Dominic Dimian, AEGEE-Passau

Starting  my “Career Story” I have to admit that for now I have not really started my career. However, I am very confident that AEGEE will play an important role in this regard and that it opened some doors as well as helped me develop myself. This was never my intention in the beginning. I joined AEGEE as a young and an even more naïve boy who knew nothing. I was looking for some entertainment and the opportunity to discover other cultures, without any ambitions.

When I was convinced to go to  my first European AEGEE event this changed fairly quickly. I realized the scale of this association and the opportunities to do more. I came back to Passau and ran for a board position for which I got elected. I was responsible for international students, learned how to coordinate a team, handle a budget and organise events. Furthermore, I improved my public speaking skills and started networking within several institutions.

This did not go unnoticed and the international office of my university offered me a job without me actually applying. So, after my first semester studying, I got a job and therefore the chance to work on projects not only on a voluntary, but also on a paid and professional basis.

That was the kick-off for more opportunities, as it opened the door to the student’s parliament of my university as well as another big project in cooperation with several German universities and the German government. And although most of this was either unpaid or low paid, with every meeting, project and “business” trip I was able to enlarge my network, get to know people from different work fields and learn skills  and methods that my studies could have never taught me.

Summing up I want to stress that the real value of AEGEE for me was the possibility to not only learn a lot about organisation, team and event management and more but also to put this into practice. To try things, to succeed and to fail and to learn from those failures. To realize my own weaknesses and to exchange best practices with the people around me. I did not even mention the personal experiences and discoveries, the memories and emotional value that enriched my life for five years and which I will remember forever.

In the end it does not matter if you join AEGEE specifically, or you go to another NGO. It is just important that you do something, try something and learn by doing something! Don’t be stuck in theory, studies or some seminars but join projects, working groups, NGOs, etc. and use your full potential for something good and I promise you will get back more than you put into it!

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week,  Tanna Briliant Dwizky  presents himself.

Coming from a small city in a country far away from Europe called Indonesia never made me give up my dream to reach for a better career/life in the future. I am currently studying Journalism at Ege University, İzmir, Turkey, through a fully funded scholarship. Being able to stand here and be able to work in an International society, there are surely big things that I should be grateful for. From when I was in Senior High School, I have been involved with many organisations and volunteer activities. I enjoyed working with people, expressing my creativity and exchanging ideas with them as well. Also I can consider that one of the reasons that I’m here is because of the quality that I have developed since I was in high school through participating in several organizational and volunteering activities.

Since I believe that I had a big start from zero, I always try to catch all the opportunities around me and enjoy all the process of developing myself. At a local level, I am part of AEGEE İzmir, I’ve just participated in Damla Volunteer Project by Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Turkey. And in the international version, I am involved in some Erasmus+ Youth Exchange Projects as well. Being involved in several volunteer activities and youth projects could easily open me to get higher opportunities to build my future career work. Since I am passionate in Media and Communication field, I am experienced in several organization voluntary working in media and communication field as well. During this process, I never underestimate small things and always enjoy developing my skills and enlarge my network as well.

Through these experiences I had gained, skills which have been so beneficial to me in order to build my future work. I use Linkedin and other similar social in order to further this base for future work. I have finished my 3 months internship as a Social Media Content Intern at Digital Advertising Agency here in İzmir and worked for several companies using Turkish language, which I learnt in just 9 months. At the same time, I am remotely working for a Social Media Application start-up company in indonesia called Diaspora Connect as Content Marketing.

Once I realised that I am still developing myself for a better future, yet I am so grateful that I can build my career further until now. Reflecting on what I am doing now, surely I’ll remember what I’ve done so that I can use my past experiences in order to be active in several organisations and volunteer activities. Because I am sure, if we had a dream, the universe will support us as long as we believe in it.

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Marie-Claire Graf presents herself.

Marie-Claire Graf, Member of AEGEE-Dresden, Co-Founder of AEGEE contact in Zurich, Member of the Society and Environment Interest Group, Co-Content manager of EPM Izmir 2019, Europe on Track 5 Ambassador

Up to 65% of Generation Z jobs, that’s us, don’t even exist yet and up to 45% of the activities people are paid to perform today could be automated using current technology. This won’t necessarily mean fewer jobs, but it will mean new jobs requiring different skills. When new skills become in demand as fast as others become extinct, employability is less about what you already know and more about your capacity to learn. It requires a totally new and different mindset. 

So, what do we need to be ready for for the future, and how do you get a job that doesn’t exist yet? No one can accurately predict what jobs will look like in the future, but future careers are about soft skills and there are seven skills that will be essential to your future success.

1. Mental Elasticity and Complex Problem Solving:

The future is going to bring about problems you’ve never seen before in a world you’ve never experienced. In order to solve these problems, you’ll need to have the mental flexibility to think outside of the box, see the big picture and rearrange things to find a solution. Luckily, this skill is highly developable and simply takes practice. The more difficult problems you tackle, the bendier your brain will get!

2. Critical Thinking:

Technology may be able to automate many of the jobs that currently exist, but you probably wouldn’t trust it to do your critical thinking for you; as such, your future career will require you to have excellent critical thinking skills. You’ll constantly need to be analysing various situations, considering multiple solutions and making decisions on the fly through logic and reasoning.

3. Creativity:

Worried about robots stealing your job? The more creative you are, the less likely you are to lose your job to a robot! While robots may be better than you at calculating and diagnosing problems, they aren’t very good at creating original content, thinking outside the box or being abstract, yet.

4. People Skills:

Listen, machines are going to take over eventually, and technology is going to get much more advanced, so us humans have to stick together! If you want to succeed in the future job market, you’ll need to learn how to manage and work with people (and robots), which includes getting in touch with your emotions, having empathy and listening,

5. STEM:

Even though science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related jobs are super-hot right now, don’t expect them to go away in the future. As technology progresses, you’ll need to have more advanced STEM skills to keep up. Also, coding.

6. SMAC:

You’ve heard of STEM, but you probably haven’t heard of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). Learning all of these skills/platforms will make you stand out in the future job market!

7. Interdisciplinary Knowledge:

Your future career will require you to pull information from many different fields to come up with creative solutions to future problems. This skill’s easy to work on as well. Start by reading as much as you can about anything and everything that interests you.

If this is the list of requirements for the future of work, I have to admit that the education system didn’t prepare me well for the future. That’s where my passion for social engagement and volunteering comes in. 

I started being active from a very young age as I was eager to change and shape things rather than wait for others to do so but as well to learn these so-called soft skills. Soft skills, often called people skills or emotional intelligence, refer to the ability to interact amicably with others. Soft skills are personal attributes that can affect relationships, communication, and interaction with others. 

The activities I’m doing with and for AEGEE are strengthening these skills which cannot be learnt with books in a classroom. It’s about doing it yourselves and with others together. Within AEGEE, we celebrate open discussions and negotiations while becoming aware of cultural differences. The European meetings and projects are a wonderful example of how to strengthen this communication skill. Another crucial skill is networking, which is part of AEGEE’s identity and is practised on a daily basis. Did you know that 85% of all jobs are filled through networking? It’s crazy, but honestly, I got nearly all opportunities and positions via personal relations or references. So think about engaging with participants and external guests. Holding engaging and entertaining presentations is key for your private and professional life, and it’s not easy. In fact, the average attention span among people who listen to speeches is estimated to be somewhere between 5 – 10 minutes. The optimal attention span that can be comfortably held by an interested human engaged in listening to a speaker is approx. 20 minutes. Have you ever wondered why TED-talks are 18 minutes long? That’s because this is precisely one unit of optimal attention span. And that’s the reason why we are doing energisers and try to be as interactive as possible. AEGEEans provide fast and honest feedback for you – if everyone is sleeping in the room, you probably overstretched their attention span. Furthermore, it’s essential to communicate effectively and resolve conflicts early. Sounds basic? Unfortunately, we spend most of our time with ineffective conflict and error solving. You can read many books about communication, but AEGEE is providing you with an amazing playground to improve your communication in a more fun way, with a special challenge when it comes to intercultural exchange and language differences. Even if we think English is dominating communication, the beauty lies in the nuances. AEGEE is opening doors to 40 countries all over Europe with different cultures, traditions and languages. Being multilingual is not only a career boost but essential in a more and more globalised world. Did you know that approx. 15 % of the world’s population are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese? In case you are looking for a new challenge. In fact, I could use my Chinese in Russia during Europe on Track. Teamwork and project management is as well a significant boost for your career and is very related to our everyday AEGEE life. We in the AEGEE Social and Environmental Interest Group did the Belbin team Role tests because a team is not just a bunch of people, but a congregation of individuals, each of whom has a role which is understood by other members. I strongly encourage you and your team to this test. It’s highly interesting to understand yourself better as well as your team. Complex problem-solving is essential to competence as well, which is needed for the future because challenges are becoming more sophisticated and solutions have to consider broader stakeholders. With the diverse focus areas of AEGEE and our local projects in mind, we are facing challenges and try to come up with customised problem-solving solutions. The last, but not least, essential ability is to improve oneself at working under pressure in AEGEE. We all know it when all deadlines are approaching together, but you are still mastering the situation. This is a skill, and you are capable of being the winner of said situation. 

So, what is the most important thing I can take away for me personally, for my future, career and life? I could experience who I am. Where am I now? Where do I want to go in the future? And how do I get there? What drives me? Who motivates me? What inspires me? I learnt how to get to know myself better and to appreciate small achievements while not losing sight of the big picture and vision. Volunteering opened many new doors I was not even aware of a meaningful and exciting future. 

Furthermore, it’s the ability to be prepared and ready. It’s the self-confidence of acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses. It’s a pleasure to explore new areas because I could overcome language or presentation barriers. I take pride when my friends and boss are congratulating me for my achievements and communication skills. It’s the serenity if I’m starting a new position in a new team and we are already friends. Yes, it’s the security to be prepared for an uncertain future. No one can accurately predict what jobs will look like in the future, but future careers are about these soft skills. 

Many times, I was not even aware of my skills and therefore, who I really am. Therefore, I would like to encourage you all to talk to your AEGEEans about your strengths and weaknesses, your skills and your passions. Empower each other and co-create the world you want to live in together. Be proactive and design and shape our future. Practice the mentioned soft skills to find yourself. Be active and show the world who you are. All these experiences in- and outside of AEGEE are shaping who you are. You should be proud of what you achieved and use it the best way in the future. Make AEGEE proud and be proud of AEGEE. 

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Fabian Brügemann presents himself.

Looking back at my time in AEGEE, the first thing that comes to my mind are all the amazing people I got to know and all the fun I had, attending all those conferences, Agoras and social meetings. And when I look at where I am right now, all those links to things I am doing right now become more visible for me.

Next to my job at the University of Cologne, I am running my own training company, Improve Yourself Training. I am giving soft skills trainings and team buildings to companies. And it all started with a workshop at Agora Kyiv in 2009, because “I just wanted to know how it is to give a workshop”. After being an AEGEE-Academy member for some years and about 100 workshops in AEGEE later, I gave my first training for a company. And since my first workshop was about improvisation theatre and somehow needed a name, I called it “improv(e) yourself”, so my company name always reminds me of my first training steps in AEGEE.

Being president of the Mediation Commission, I learned what it means to solve conflicts and really understand all parties involved. Those are skills that are very helpful for my job at University, which is about change management. And having given some team buildings for the CD really helped me with the team buildings I gave for companies.

My first job, however, was at an IT-consulting company – and it became clear to me very quickly that all the stuff I learned at University was nothing compared to the skills I learned while working in international teams in AEGEE. Cultural differences exist, and while being on my first project, working in 11 different European countries, it was quite fun to realize how valuable all the teamwork in international teams in AEGEE was.

However, there is one thing I learned in AEGEE which I like the most – and that is the power of fun, idealism and hard work combined. Before I joined AEGEE, those were different worlds for me, but in AEGEE it all got connected and showed me that a combination of all three can be very successful.

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Lyda Michopoulou presents herself.

Lyda Michopoulou, Trainer of The Academy and AEGEE-Athina member

AEGEE was the third student NGO I was member of (first 2 were IAAS & EGEA).  When I became a trainer in 2012 I realized quite fast that my original NGO, IAAS, didn’t have many opportunities for new trainers. That is why I started searching for a student NGO that would have a developed training system, where I could improve my training skills, to learn and to share.  After spending a year in EGEA, I learned about The Academy and decided to join AEGEE in January of 2014.

The first year of my AEGEE journey, was fully committed in training design and delivery inside Academy in RTCs, LTCs and European Schools. All this cultivated in applying and getting elected Speaker of Academy 2014-2015. Even though I was new to ACA, I wanted to give my best to move ACA forward.

I joined AEGEE for Academy, though during Agora Bergamo. I realized there are more things in this association than just training. Therefore, I decided to get more involved with my local, AEGEE-Thessaloniki, starting by going to weekly meetings and share some of the experience I’ve gathered over the years. It was during a weekly AEGEE meeting when I decided: “Let’s take over the organization of Winter University for the part of Thessaloniki and make it happen”. Organizing a Winter University and co-coordinating it with the other 4 Greek antennae was a unique experience full of joy, hard work, fun and serious times, stress and happy participants.

Fast forward two years later and two mandates as HR Responsible in AEGEE-Thessaloniki while being a member of Human Resources Committee, makes me realize that throughout the last 5 years I am a member in AEGEE. My life changed a lot, personally and professionally. I joined because of trainings though I stayed because of the open-mindedness, the organizational culture and the sense of belonging I felt.

Being a member of AEGEE was, and still is, one of the best decisions I made in my life. It played a big role in making me the trainer and the person I am today. It also has given me the space, resources and people (some of whom became good friends) I needed to evolve and support others to do the same. It’s an amazing and magical experience I will never forget.  Thank you!

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Thomas Leszke presents himself.

Thomas Leszke, AEGEE-Köln

I am writing this text from a rather adventurous location in the region of Kherson, southern Ukraine, close to Crimea. And I should probably mention that no, this is not where I grew up. I was born on a farm in the village of Heeze, the Netherlands, and I spent much of my childhood among trees, chickens and cows. But there is a reason that now, at the age of 33, I work for the OSCE on international missions – and AEGEE has everything to do with it.

Choosing your profession is a difficult thing to do. In particular, there are two questions that are very hard to solve: What do I really want to do in my professional life? And then: How do I get the necessary skills and experience for that?

What makes these questions even more difficult today is the fact that our modern world offers us endless opportunities. Dreams of becoming a pilot, a diplomat, a fashion designer? No problem! Everyone keeps telling us that yes, we can be whatever we want! But at the same time, it is expected of us that we make our choices as soon as possible and that these choices are definitive. Choose now! You have no time to lose! The labour market won’t wait!

When I entered university, I could already feel this pressure. But I literally had no idea what I wanted to be in life. The only thing I did know was that I still had a few years until my graduation, and I wanted to make the best of it. Many of my friends applied for internships, took expensive evening courses and studied their butts off. They wanted to be prepared. But when I discovered AEGEE, I quickly realised that there was a better path lying ahead of me.

In my first year, I organised Erasmus parties and had a lot of fun. But soon, AEGEE-Köln needed a new president, and the more experienced members had no time (because they had “more important things” to do). From that moment on, I went on autopilot. Network Meeting, Summer University, Agora (Aachen 2008). President, Network Commission, Project Manager. I took a year off from university to join the Comité Directeur 2010-2011. I organised dozens of events and moderated dozens of workshops. I became completely fluent in English. I lost my fear to speak on stage in front of 1000 people. I had a safe environment to study how politics works in practice. I learned important lessons in intercultural cooperation, strategic planning and conflict resolution. But most of all: I discovered my talent and my passion for non-formal education and cultural diplomacy.

In 2013, one year before completing my Master’s degree in Political Science, I landed my (then) dream job as a trainer in a national project for European political education at the German Schwarzkopf Foundation. When I asked my new boss what made them choose me, she said, without hesitation: “Your AEGEE experience is simply priceless. We need people who are authentic, confident and experienced despite their young age. No university in the world can teach that.”

But it doesn’t stop here. When I joined the AEGEE delegation to an OSCE conference in Warszawa in 2013, we discovered the professional field of international election observation. I and Alin of AEGEE-Wien realised immediately: This is something we can do ourselves. With the few contacts we had, we gathered 19 AEGEE members and requested accreditation for our first mission to the Ukrainian Presidential Election of 2014.

Today, 21 AEGEE Election Observation Missions and five years later, I am again a guest at the Ukrainian Presidential Election – as a Long-Term Observer for the second-largest OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission in history, coordinating a team of 18 international Short-Term Observers including a French diplomat, a Canadian navy commander and a Swiss parliamentarian who all pay close attention as I brief them on the political situation in Kherson, the sunniest city of Ukraine…

So yes, this is where AEGEE got me. I would probably be doing an uninspired PhD by now if I hadn’t followed my instinct back in 2007: to take my time to learn and discover, try and fail – and dare to enjoy it. I know that there are those few people who somehow don’t need this sort of experience to thrive. But unless your name is Albert Einstein, I promise you that there are few better choices you can make!

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Julia Krebs presents herself.

Julia Krebs, AEGEE-Osnabrück

My name is Julia and I started studying international relations and management in my hometown in Germany in 2009. After my bachelors, I went to study European Studies in Osnabrück. Even before I moved there, I already looked for something international that I could do in this small town. That is how I found AEGEE: Once I had arrived to Osnabrück, I went to AEGEE meetings and got immediately involved as Treasurer. Thanks to my involvement in AEGEE, one of my professors encouraged me to apply for the College of Europe, a very prestigious school for European politics. I had previously never thought about applying there, since my grades were not the best, but my professor encouraged me to apply anyways. In hindsight I think that having AEGEE on my CV definitely helped me in being accepted at this university.

After having finished my masters, I started a job at a big German private foundation. I worked there in a junior position somewhere between an intern and a project manager. This entry level position was very popular which is why I asked my bosses why they chose me. During the job interview, I had to write one exercise that included a question about project management and event organisation. My bosses told me that this exercise had set me far apart from my peers because it became clear that I had worked in projects before and I knew what to take into account when organizing events – a skill that I definitely acquired through my engagement in AEGEE.

After one year at this job, I changed jobs to the job that I have now. I am a project officer working for a research network called TEPSA – the Trans European Policy Studies Association. We have members from all over Europe that work on EU affairs in their country. I think it is already becoming clear that this is the perfect job for an AEGEEan. My organisations feels a bit like AEGEE for grown-ups. We have General Assemblies every 6 months where all members come together and it is always another member that is organizing it. Apart from the institutional insight into networks that I gained from attending numerous Agorae and other meetings in AEGEE, I found one thing especially useful: working in international teams. Not only is our team in the office very international, but also I am working mostly on one project that deals with EU-Central Asia relations. In this project, our partners are based in 11 countries which means that we have to communicate mostly online, something that I also already experienced a lot during my AEGEE time.

All these skills helped me a great deal in getting jobs but also in succeeding in these jobs. However, the most important for me were not certain skills or experiences that I have acquired throughout my AEGEE life but the people. You don’t only find friends for life but you also build up a European network all over Europe and also in Brussels.

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Renate van Breugel presents herself.

Renate van Breugel, AEGEE-Leiden

My name is Renate van Breugel and I was the Treasurer and European Affairs Officer of AEGEE-Leiden in 2015-2016. During my board year I was lucky enough to have met several interesting people. One of those meetings happened during a lecture that I had organised with our European Committee. This was a lecture about IS and the consequences for the Netherlands. We had two Dutch Members of Parliament and a Dutch European Parliament Member to debate the issues relating to IS. After this lecture I stayed in touch with one of our Dutch MPs and she offered me an internship with her, which I gratefully accepted. Thus my first internship began. I was her shadow for more than three months and I learned a lot from her. To this day I am very grateful to her for giving me the opportunity and believing in me.

After this internship and the experience I had gotten from AEGEE and our Dutch Parliament, many more followed. I’ve done internships at De Brauw Blackstone and Westbroek, the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the Council of Europe and one at the Council of Europe itself. Right now I am doing my masters in Public International Law and I hope to work for an international organisation when I am graduated.

Without AEGEE-Leiden and my board year I would not have had the connections that helped me to get my internships. They all followed one after the other, it really was like a snowball effect. Though my internships had not that much to do with my Treasurer tasks, my board year helped me to develop lobbying and management skills, which come in handy when doing an internship or working in your job. Also stress- and crisis-management are things I have learned during my board year. Those skills always come in handy.

At that time I did not realise how much you learn and how much you grow when you are in charge of an organisation like AEGEE-Leiden, but looking back I can say that it has definitely helped me prepare for the real grown-up world. Furthermore, AEGEE-Leiden has given me a wonderful friendship with my two board members Stefan and Fleur, which will hopefully last a lifetime.

I would recommend my fellow AEGEEans to make the most of your time with AEGEE. Go to as many events as you can; apply for a board year; make international friends; learn as much as you can, but above all have lots of fun and do not be afraid to fail!  

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Oksana Spolyak and Álvaro González present themselves.

Oksana Spolyak, AEGEE-Lviv

I am a linguist by profession, specialized in foreign languages. I was teaching English during my university years and a year later after graduation. Actually, it was the experience of event management in AEGEE that motivated me apply for a different job. By that time I became the secretary of our antenna, coordinated one local educational project, had been a core team member of Agora Kyiv 2015, and been in the middle of coordinating the Ukrainian part of TSU “Tale of Slavic Twins” with AEGEE-Krakow, apart from  helping and organizing other different local and European events in my native local of AEGEE-Lviv. Honestly, I didn’t consider that experience as something that could get me a job in another field than of my specialization.

After approximately half a year of unsuccessful attempts,  just before the departure to Agora Bergamo (laughing), I was heading to an interview at the Lviv City Council for the position of a project manager in the Lviv Convention Bureau. The experience of coordinating two AEGEE projects stood above my occupation as an English teacher in my CV. And I was really surprised to hear these words from my future boss, “Wow, that’s impressive!” She was talking about my AEGEE experience. I really couldn’t understand how extracurricular activities like volunteering in some NGO could get me a job. But it did.And not just  the two aforementioned experiences with AEGEE, but the overall experience and skills developed at AEGEE in around 3 years helped me later in my daily work at a convention bureau where I continue to work.

The main idea of the Convention Bureau is to promote the city as a meetings destination, being a kind of liaison between international meeting planners/association representatives and local service providers. Through my experience at AEGEE, I could draw parallels to the work and structure of big organizations/associations. I was able to organize my first familiarization trip to the city for foreign meeting planners on my own. I later became a coordinator of an international profile conference for 80, meeting industry professionals at the age of 23. The public speaking experience gained during recruitment presentations of AEGEE-Lviv served as a good basis for improving these skills at my job. I was able to positively leverage this experience at B2B meetings at different trade shows, and the quite recent presentation of Lviv’s meetings’ potential in front of around 150 tourism professionals from Latvia served me as well.

These are just a few examples how AEGEE helped me in my career. My advice to all fellow AEGEEans would be to value the experience you get in AEGEE, present it confidently and use every opportunity in our organization that you find relevant. And don’t forget to enjoy yourself while you’re at it (smiles).  

Álvaro González Pérez, an Ambassador of “Europe on Track”-2019

When I joined AEGEE, both my studies and the career I was building were completely different from what I am currently doing. For my BA degree, I was studying English, Philology, and teaching languages. Although I have always known that languages are my passion, I always doubted about being a teacher or a translator, until I got to know AEGEE during my Erasmus in Osnabrück. Joining the association gave me room to develop the skills that I did not know I possessed.

From the time that I delivered my first workshop, being nervous and insecure in front of an audience of about just 20 people, to where I am now, writing this while about to begin my journey in Europe on Track, for which I feel more than prepared and where I will be delivering workshops in 10 cities around Europe for up to 100 people. Being in AEGEE has also provided me the opportunity to get to know about other trainings or events from other associations.

Regarding the career that I would like to pursue now, working on projects, the fact that I coordinated the AEGEE European Day of Languages 2016 edition (with no experience at the time on project management) and European Citizenship Working Group (ECWG) opened several doors. For instance, in my last working position as project assistant, I was dealing with, among other things, EU projects with budgets of up to 1.5 million €, something I could have never expected had I not gained the experience I didin our network. Furthermore, it also allowed me to identify that I was more into sociology and international relations (that is why I did my MA in European Studies). And last but not least, it allowed me to realise that I definitely want to keep working professionally in civil society.

Indeed, AEGEE is volunteering. It’s about making a change in our society and trying to shape Europe as we think it should be. But it’s also about personal development and I could not be more grateful to it for having given me the tools and the space to allow me to develop in order to into the person that I am today.

Never underestimate what you do in AEGEE: what you learn here can help you discover new strengths in your personality, hone your skills and boost your career! Let us inspire you. In cooperation with the Youth Development Working Group, the AEGEEan launches a series of career stories which all started thanks to the invaluable experience gained by being active in AEGEE. This week, Viola Bianchetti and Alperen Yavuz present themselves.

Viola Bianchetti, Projects Director of AEGEE-Europe

My experience with job seeking is definitely not extensive, but still I could notice that my AEGEE experience has been a valuable addition to my CV and also an important asset in a working environment. In Autumn 2017 I applied for a traineeship at the European Economic and Social Committee, a consultative body of the European Union. The selection process for any traineeship in the EU institutions is very competitive, and usually successful candidates already hold a Master degree, while I was still in the third semester of my M.A. course. Moreover, being Italian is a disadvantage, since there are national quotas and the number of Italian applicants is always very high. This said, I did not have many hopes to be accepted, but I was! It is easy to imagine that my AEGEE experience made a difference between me and other candidates, even though I do not have a proof of it. At that moment, my experience in AEGEE accounted for one year as part of the local board of AEGEE-Bologna, almost two years as team member of an international project (Your Vision for Europe), and I was at the time starting my mandate as coordinator of a Working Group.

Once I started my traineeship, I could easily see that my AEGEE experience was very useful in my everyday tasks. The unit where I was working was in charge of institutional relations between the EU and the civil society sector, and the experience which I gathered in the European level of AEGEE enabled me to understand very quickly who the civil society actors involved were and what their relation with EU institutions was. Moreover, most of my knowledge of EU institutions came from my involvement in the project Your Vision for Europe, rather than from my studies.

The soft skills which I developed in AEGEE were also very useful in a professional environment. My colleagues were quite surprised by the fact that I was proactive, quick and I did not need a lot of explanations. I soon realised that I was used to doing things with very few instructions, just learning by doing, and I was not scared of making mistakes. Moreover, during my traineeship my unit organised three conferences and my experience in event management in AEGEE was very useful in that. Besides the tasks related to the preparations of the conference, I was also helping with logistics during the day of the event. My experience in AEGEE was very important in this, as I could quickly see where my help was needed, what was not in the right place, and what should be fixed. This is a skill that every AEGEEan who organised a local or international event surely developed!

Sometimes we do not recognise sufficiently our experience as volunteers. It is important at times to stop and reflect about what we learned in AEGEE and how we can apply it in other fields. I am sure that if you do this exercise, you would be surprised by how many valuable skills you developed! It is then important to present them in a confident manner: volunteering experience is not less than professional experience! To the contrary, it shows that you are a proactive and engaged person and that you can commit to a project and stay motivated on a long-term basis.

Alperen Yavuz, an AEGEE Alumnus

When I first joined AEGEE a decade ago, I never realized it would have changed my direction of career. I was studying Electronics Engineering at a Technical University and probably would turn into being a Research & Development kind of person. But as I learned to be a person who wants to change something and turn it into a reality, I started to look for what else I could do.

Sometimes we do not realize the value of having so many people around us from so many countries & backgrounds. When you start your working life, you realize that communication and teamwork skills are extremely valued. And these skills don’t come easy! When I first started my Consulting career, I realized that there were many different people from different countries, but I could bond with them and work with them quite easily. Well as you can guess, this is very normal for an AEGEEan, as it is our daily life. But what we are forgetting to understand is not everyone has this kind of opportunity before their professional career. My teammates and my clients always thanked me for my way of approaching them, without realizing that I developed this in AEGEE.

These meetings or conferences we are having during our time here, or the workshops we are giving are extremely useful as well. It was my second month at work and I had to lead a very important meeting with a client, because both of my supervisors got food-poisoning (!) I was very comfortable to lead the meeting making everybody surprised (myself included), as we don’t know but we do keep working on these muscles in our daily life in AEGEE.

And for last, let’s not forget about all those events, projects, workshops and much more stuff that we are organizing here. We are learning to start something from zero and make it real, which is something you call a Project Lifecycle at work! And starting this from an early age, and when they don’t expect much from you when you start your first job shocks them. In a shorter or longer run, you have a lot more advantage than you realize!