Lilia “Lia” Georgieva (AEGEE-Berlin) is a Bulgarian girl, who chose to study Communication Science in Berlin. She joined AEGEE for the Summer Universities and now is running for Project Manager of Summer University Coordination Team (SUCT). The AEGEEan interviewed her to learn more about her and her plans.

The AEGEEan: First of all, tell us some things about you. What do you do apart from AEGEE?
Lia: I try to live my life as good as I can. I am studying Communication Science in Berlin right now and I am also working part time. Of course, I leave some time for going out and travelling. I moved to Germany last year, so I was mainly occupied with getting to know the place and discovering my surroundings. Actually, besides AEGEE my life is pretty normal.

What is Summer University (SU) to you? What was your best SU experience? What was your worst SU experience?
The SU Project was my beginning in AEGEE. It showed me what was that so famous “AEGEE spirit”, I tried so many different things, I had so much fun on so many levels. I had a taste of the fun and carefree atmosphere of AEGEE and that lighted up the fire. I wanted to learn more, to do more, to give back the energy I received. So my first Summer University actually reached its goal – it got at least one person hooked on AEGEE.

I have been a participant twice in SUs, but the best experience was definitely when I was organising. It is one thing to be part of all the activities, and another thing is to prepare them, take care of people and see their happy faces when everything goes well. I loved it! I learned so much about myself, I developed in a way I never thought possible, and better than that was only the way our team grew together. We all started as different people doing a SU together, and then ended up as friends for life. Sadly, or actually luckily, there is no story I can share as worst SU experience.

Why did you decide to run for Project Manager? Why would you like to work on this Project? How did organising a SU prepared you for the task?
I wanted to be part of SUCT for quite dome time. The only thing was to decide the position and the answer came during Summer University Project School (SUPS) 2015. There we were divided into teams, and had to organise a fictional SU, and I was the Main Coordinator, which let me be in the leading position for the project. I tested myself to the fullest, trying out my character in stressful situations, and I had the chance to see what type of leader I would be. I was pleasantly surprised with myself – for me the team was way more important than proving my point, the peace while working and the understanding between each other were and will always be my first priority. From my side, the coordinator of a project should be the one taking care of deadlines, what is always one of the big problem in the SU projects, make sure the team is in a good mood, fit to work together and that everyone is working with desire, not to be the one imposing their own opinion or taking over the team. I saw I can do that, and therefore I think the position of Project Manager fits me the best.

What do you want to change from the current SUCT?
SUCT this year did a very good job. I really liked the idea of releasing the names of participants, but the implementation could have been done better. I would like to improve the form that organisers get with all the participants’ info. If names are released, they should be already in the file, also with information like the age of participants. Another vital thing is communication. I would really like to emphasis on that. More reminders, more e-mails, more communication between locals and SUCT, so that we can keep up the deadlines and things like obligatory sessions are actually included in the program. We will do some more work at the beginning so we don’t need to do it afterwards.

In your application you refer to having SUs with the topic of volunteering. How do you plan to implement this?
Volunteering is the essence of AEGEE, and for me it is a shame that we don’t emphasize more on it. I would like to change that, because I believe with the right promotion everything is possible. People consider SUs with more “serious” topics to be boring, and try to avoid them. But I think if they look at it in another way, if they think outside the box, they will see that doing a volunteering SU is not boring at all. I would like to help them discover this side. That means good promo material, showing the benefits of having a volunteering SU. Because it is also a category with which people don’t have too much experience, we will have to issue some guidelines and helping materials to explain the concept of a volunteering SU. To encourage more SUs with topics that are being left behind we can also give an extra point for the ones that do them.

You also mention that the system needs improvement at the receiving of motivation letters and updating the organisers’ platform. Tell us more about this idea.
I already mentioned the motivation letters’ problem, but basically when we were organising our SU this summer, there were a couple of problems we had with the format of the letters. This year you can download them from the website in an excel form, which was highly uncomfortable to read. It would be better to have the applications in as PDF for example. Also it would be good to add the names and ages of participants in the file. This will introduce a big change in the SU system. Having the names will allow organisers to get easier into contact with participants. We used to consider it unfair, because if you see the person you might choose him/her for his/her looks or because you know them. Well, if you know the person, you also know their application even if the name is not written. And having the names there for everyone to see will enable organisers to see for themselves if they have the so called “ghost participants” in front of them or not.

In the organisers’ platform there are small things that in my opinion can be corrected. For example, all the info about participants and the applications are in the incoming’s panel. It’s not a big thing if you are used to it. But if we can change that, make it more structured and user friendly, it will be better. Also, when you have to upload the program of the SU, there is a field, called “learning objectives”. It is not a bad thing to make organisers think about that, but in the moment when the program is uploaded no one has the time and the need to make up learning objectives. For me it is not useful there.

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Sofia/Thessaloniki

You can read her full candidature here.

Carolina Alfano from AEGEE-Salerno decided, after organising four Summer Universities (SUs), to run for Project Manager of  Summer University Coordination Team (SUCT). The AEGEEan interviewed her to find out more about her and her candidature.

The AEGEEan: First of all, tell us some things about you. What do you do apart from AEGEE?
Carolina: I am an ordinary girl from the south of Italy, very active, who has lately realised what to do in her life. In fact, after studying history of art, having been in Spain for the Erasmus programme, studied cinema, this year I enrolled again at university with much clearer ideas. I am a freshman of Economics and Management and I am very happy to have gone down this road. I love my town, Angri, very much! For this reason, I am a member of a new association “Randoom” in my town, and with a good team of friends we are trying to give space and opportunities to young people.

What is Summer University to you? What was your best SU experience? What was your worst SU experience?
Good question! For many years I thought that the SU was “Hard work” because organising the SU in Salerno means dealing with various municipalities, university, other associations, youth forums and it is never easy. Months of emails, phone calls, meetings, and then comes the big day of the beginning. Anxiety soaring, participants to meet, and 15 days to spend together. This year, however, I joined the first SU as participant and my idea has changed. For me, the SU means to test myself during 15 days of extraordinary magic, it means to discover new places, an unknown reality, it means meeting new friends with whom to spend days, evenings, unforgettable moments.It is a unique experience, hard to describe and you can only live it intensely.
The SU, I think, is always a wonderful experience characterized by good and bad episodes. More than episode, a beautiful moment for me was one evening at the Welcome Party of “Not Just the Sun – Silver Edition” in 2013. We had spent the afternoon to prepare the castle for the welcome party, a spectacular location. I was destroyed to make that evening perfect, tired and out of energy and it was great to see the participants and organizers having fun, dancing, laughing all together. a great moment of personal satisfaction: my hard work had achieved its objectives.
A very bad moment was last year, during the summer when I was SU Coordinator. We organized a strange party in the gym, only for organizers and participants. And almost at the end of the evening I realise that my mobile phone was gone. It was charging it on the table, and it disappeared. I fell upon the world, I did not trust in anybody anymore, I left the gym for that night. Someone had been in the gym and had stolen my phone. I lost all the numbers, all the images of the summer, all the contacts. I was very disappointed because it was a private party and a stranger had ruined the moment.

Why did you decide to run for Project Manager? Why would you like to work on this project? How did organising four SUs prepare you for the task?
I evaluated my position very well beforehand: I have considered the things I can do, the years that I have dedicated to SUs and my motivation. AEGEE has given me the opportunity to get into the game, help me in my personal growth, learn, improve, and now it is time to give back what I have learnt. Manageing the SU project would be a real honor for me. In these five years in AEGEE I devoted most of my time at ‘NON SOLO SOLE’ SU and I think that now I have the necessary skills to take on this new challenge. The SUs as organizer in Salerno were my school: I learned to make mistakes, to accept it and learn to improve from it. So I learned to manage my role as team leader while remaining part of the group, to remain calm in face of difficulties, managing deadlines. I think I have passed the practical test with merit, I am ready for the next one!

What do you want to change from the current SUCT?
It is not easy, not being a member of the SUCT, to understand the dynamics that influence the strategy of the SUCT towards the locals. However, I believe the approach used to manage the project is somehow not considering all the difficulties and problems that each local has, such as available funding, relationship with institutions, number of active members, etc. All these factors put the local in an uncomfortable position which would discourage them in organising a SU. It would be beneficial for the project if there would be a much closer relationship between the SUCT and the locals. Understanding their issues, listening to their concerns is the way the SUCT should take when setting up a new strategy.

In your application you mention that you want to understand why a lot of antennae cannot organise SUs. How do you think this can be implemented?
As a first step, I would start defining the issues each antenna has in organising the SU. There may be common issues among the locals that could be addressed with a better strategy. Other issues would instead require a more targeted approach. Once the issues are defined we need to understand the causes and which could be the actions to take in order to tackle the problems. Finally I would propose some individual actions that each local can take in order to ease the organisation of an SU.

You also refer to a collaboration with Commissions and Committees. Explain to us how this collaboration can work.
As I wrote before I would try to understand the problems of the antennas in organizing the summer, try to find solutions and help and support them. It may help to write a manual of organization, management and promotion of the SU, an “How to Manage a SU”. A cooperation with the AEGEE committees, such as HRC or PRC, and the involvement of the Audit or Netcom commissions could help in supporting the SU organisers. The HRC and the PRC could support and help SUCT, sharing expertises and strategies, or collaborating to edit the manual. And Network Commissioners could organize more workshops about SU, or sharing best experiences and good advises during Network Meetings.

Is there anything else that would you like to focus on during your term?
The evaluations form could be implemented, with more details, it should be a very useful tool for locals. It should treat many more aspects. But I would like to compare my opinion regarding evaluations with the future members of SUCT, I think that working hard together we can do a great and good job. I can’t wait!

Written by Lia Tuska, AEGEE-Sofia/Thessaloniki

You can read her full candidature here.