HOW DO I REPRESENT?

Breda University of Applied Sciences

This experience will highlight not only how I represent myself as a professional, but also how I represent the track: event management. The work that I did for Breda University of Applied Sciences will highlight and answer this question. This experience will consist of me taking part in a press conference held for the first-year students and will also describe me working for the Open Day at the Academy for Leisure.

Communication and leadership styles

The topic of one of the playground classes was “Communication and Leadership styles”. There I learned that there are four main leadership styles: directing, coaching, supporting delegating, but also four main communication styles: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, assertive. Having learned this, it allowed me to identify the leadership and communication styles during my experience working for BUas.

Press conference

Mireille Heijnen was impressed with the work I did within the professional leadership classes during my first year. She appreciated the fact that I have good communication and presentation skills and also the fact that I want to contribute to the school’s development on a more international level. She recommended me to the organizer of the press conference and therefore I was invited to attend. My role was to answer the questions of the first-year students and tell them about my experiences from last year. After spending around three hours in which I put into perspective my ideas and analysed the first year, I was well prepared. The other people taking part in the conference were representatives of different departments within the Academy for Leisure. The conference lasted one hour, and I felt really good because not only was I able to answer their questions, but also managed to encourage and motivate them. I got really good feedback from the coordinator of the press conference, saying that I made some really important points. I was happy because this experience provided me with the opportunity to be the representative of the second-year students, which was a big responsibility, but also to help the first-year students with the track insights that I gained.

Open Day

On the 10thof November, I volunteered to help out with the Open day which took place at the Academy for Leisure. This was a productive but somehow tiring day, because it lasted around 9 hours, during which I was really involved both mentally and physically. The day started with a briefing, in which the roles were divided. My role was to walk around and answer the questions of the visitors. I was really focused on meeting international prospective students in order to tell them about my experiences and consequently offer them an international perspective. I met and talked to students of different nationalities.

Mireille asked me to help her prepare the workshop for the international students who were attending the orientation days. So, at 12, I led the international students to the class room, where the workshop took place. Mireille and I guided them through the process and everybody ended up having fun but also gaining a better understanding of the programme. Afterwards, I went back to the main hall and helped out with whatever was needed. The most rewarding moment of the day was when the mother of an Irish student came to me and thanked me for my opinions and involvement. I could feel the honesty and authenticity in her voice, which made me feel proud of getting the chance to represent the school and my track.

Looking back on this moment and analysing my own behaviour throughout the experience, I noticed that I had an assertive communication style and supportive leadership style. I realised that I communicated in an assertive way because all the time I had a calm but yet clear and confident tone of voice. I communicated in a respectful manner and was attentive to the needs of the other students both at the press conference and at the open day. I listed without interrupting and made eye contact and delivered my message in a clear way. In terms of leadership styles, I can say that I used two different leadership styles during the press conference and the open day. During the press conference I explained to them clearly how the second semester will look like and gave them specific instructions on what they have to do, when they have to do it and how they have to do it. That means that I had a directive leadership style. During the open day I supported the students in their task, offered them guidance throughout the day and helped them reach a decision. Compared the press conference, the students at the open day were trying to find out if this study suits them, so they needed a supporting leadership.

Had it not been for the playground session I attended, I would not be able to differentiate the different leadership and communication styles and gain insight into my behaviour.

Student ambassador

Besides getting involved with Open days, I am also a student ambassador for Breda University. My responsibility is to visit fairs abroad and convince students to choose this school, by informing them and telling them about my experiences. So far, I did not have the chance to attend a fair. I only worked around 2 hours, on small tasks such as filling in surveys or different excel sheets with the information of the people who took part in different fairs. However, I already received an offer for February 2019, which I gladly accepted, and which consists of me going to Romania for a few days to represent the school at a fair and to give talks about the school and its programmes to high school students in more colleges in Romania.

Conclusion

I perceive working for the school as really beneficial for my personal and professional development. The fact that I can make a difference and at the same time help the school become more international is really rewarding for me. I feel proud that I was chosen multiple times to represent Breda University and my track.

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Global Confederation of Romanian Students

This experience will highlight the work I do for Global Confederation of Romanian Students and will answer the question of how I represent myself not only as a professional in the industry, but also my track. Global Confederation of Romanian Students is an association based in Sweden invented by Romanian students to help other Romanian students.

GCRS has 6 stations within Europe and their goal is to inform other Romanian Students who might be interested in studying abroad or studying at a certain university. GCRS owns a TV channel called STUDENTTV on Facebook and through that they are able to present the content that we make and therefore deliver the information to the interested students. The research, scripts, preparation, articles and videos take me around 20 hours to make. Within this association I perform journalistic activities which entail writing academic articles and making videos about my experiences at Breda University of Applied Sciences and about my track Event Management. Each month I need to deliver two articles related to the most interesting experiences at school and to deliver a video of minimum thirty minutes where me and other Romanian journalist from Breda discuss important information regarding our study programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY3eSmgu9XI

The video is filmed together with other students who are part of the organization but it is only available in Romanian.

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