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AIESEC

Information Booklet

Internships abroad

2011/2012

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Are you dreaming of…

…an unique international experience? …getting to know a different culture?

…an international network? …working in a professional company or/and

helping other people around the world? …broaden your worldview?

…improving varied skills? …choosing your own internship (>8000 internships) from over 110 countries?

…working in international teams? …an organization that arranges preparation, accommodation and formalities for you?

…a personal student coach that will guide you through the whole process? …the possibility to do a summer internship without study delay?

Then read on!

Index 1. AIESEC 3

What is AIESEC? 2. Types of internships 4 3. The AIESEC Experience 7

Selection Preparation Matching Integration Reintegration

4. Experience stories 9 5. Got interested? 11

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1. AIESEC What is AIESEC? In 1948, students from seven different countries founded AIESEC; a non-profit organization run by students and for students. The idea was to improve relationships between countries in Europe by means of cultural exchange programs. Initially, the purpose of AIESEC was to prevent another world war in the future, but over time the mission of AIESEC has been given a different interpretation. Today, AIESEC is looking for young talented people who are willing to challenge themselves to work in an environment where other norms and values might predominate. As a result of the continuing growth of interest in cultures, AIESEC became the largest student-run organization in the world, represented in 110 countries and with over 46.000 members. What do we envision Peace and fulfillment of humankind's potential. Our impact Our international platform enables young people to explore and develop their potential. The way we do it AIESEC provides its members with an integrated development experience comprised of international internships, leadership opportunities and participation in global learning environment. AIESEC countries in the world

Hello = Aiesec Countries

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2. Types of internships

For students with more than 60 ECTS we offer

Global Community Development Program (GDCP)

- Voluntary project, no salary - From 6 weeks onwards, normally 6-8 weeks. - All around the world; Europe, North and South America, Africa, South East Asia, Middle East, Oceania

- Usually with NGOs; nongovernmental organizations -Very broad content of internships; child labor, women emancipation, public health, institutional development, entrepreneurship, sustainability etc. -Teaching English, soft skills or other subjects/skills are also very common. -Housing will be arranged by AIESEC abroad. Possibilities are; a host family, your own apartment, intern-house etc.

For students with more than 120 ECTS we offer

Global Internship Program (GIP)

-For this type of internship you will receive a salary, enough to pay the costs of working and living in your host country. - From 6 months onwards up until 1,5 year. -All around the world; Europe, North and South America, Africa, South East Asia, Middle East, Oceania

-Internships are related to administration, finance, accounting, marketing, projects, management, ICT and human resource -You will have a general selection by AIESEC Groningen. Further selection is done by the company itself; Skype interview, motivational letter etc. -SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and big companies like Google, PWC and L'Oreal.

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National Programs Ambassadors program

-Unique summer program for first and second year Dutch university students -6 to 8 weeks -Intense preparation period

-Flight tickets will be sponsored -Professional, cultural, humanitarian pillars -Only 20 students will get selected -Destinations of 2012: Indonesia, India, Costa Rica, Panama, Malaysia, de Philippines, Mexico, Romania, Peru of Ghana For more information go to www.ambassadeursprogramma.nl

NOUR Program -Key goal: Create mutual understanding between the Western and Arabic cultures -For internationally oriented Dutch speaking 3rd and 4th year students with at least 120 ECTS -During the summer

-Around 6-8 weeks -Middle East and North Africa -Extensive preparation program -You can do a summer project of your own choice. An example is working for SOS Children's villages -Reintegration program All in all the Nour project is an unique and progressive project that challenges prejudices between different cultures. For more information go to www.nourproject.nl

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More information? Do you want to know more about the possibilities AIESEC has to offer? Then do not hesitate to join our information session! During this session we will give you more extensive information about AIESEC and our internships and former AIESEC interns will share their experiences. The information session will be hold in at the AIESEC office, Herebinnensingel 2 on: - Thursday the 12th of June 17:00h

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3. The AIESEC experience The AIESEC experience consist of the following five stages;

Application > Preparation > Matching >Integration > Reintegration Application AIESEC lets you assess your experiences and motivation for going on an AIESEC exchange. After handing in your application to AIESEC you will be invited for an interview. This is a selection conversation with two AIESEC members. This conversation will take about 1 hour and will be about your motivation, preferences and competencies. Preparation AIESEC provides resources, training and support to prepare you to live and work in another country. This includes visa processing. Coach When you are accepted for an internship, you will, first of all, meet your studentcoach. This person will guide you through the remaining stages of the AIESEC experience: preparation, integration and reintegration. So you will get support from your coach before departure, during your internship and even when you return! For an optimal assistance, it is important that your student coach knows everything about your progress in the searching-procedure. This is why you will have regular contact with your student coach through personal meetings, phone calls and email. This way we will be able to give you the best support and help. Contract and fee The next thing you will do is sign the contract. The contract contains the responsibilities of AIESEC Groningen and your responsibilities. By agreeing with the contract you also agree with paying the fee. To give AIESEC Groningen permission to debit one time an amount of 200 Euros, you need to sign an authorization form. Common Induction AIESEC has a large worldwide online-database where all students who got accepted can search for their traineeship. Searching and being matched with your ideal traineeship will take about 1 to 2 months (depending on your preferences) and dealing with all formalities will take at most 1 month (depending on the country where you will go). During the common induction you will learn about AIESEC, our values, and our mission. Besides you will be trained in how to search in our database and how to apply to an internship in the database. In the database you can find more than 7000 internships in more than 110 countries. Local Preparation Seminar The Local Preparation Seminar is a seminar together with the members of AIESEC Outgoing Exchange Team and other students who are preparing to go abroad. During this seminar you will receive a training about how to deal with different cultures and how to prepare yourself for a culture shock and a training about personal goalsetting for your time abroad.

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Matching You will be trained and given access to use our on-line database of opportunities. The more flexible you are, the more opportunities you have. When you have found the internship of your dreams you will be matched to that internship. Therefore you will sign official documents to accept the internship. When you are matched it is official that you will go abroad. From that moment on you can start arranging everything for your internship: flight ticket, visa, vaccination, insurance etc. Of course we provide you help when needed. Integration AIESEC members in your host chapter provide support and assistance in getting setup in your new environment while providing opportunities for cultural and social activities. One of the most unique features of an AIESEC traineeship is that when you are abroad you are not on your own. The Local AIESEC Committee abroad will support you. They will show you around and help you solve any problems you might encounter. You will get a “buddy” from the AIESEC committee whom you can go to with all your questions and who will help you, especially in the beginning. It all starts when someone from AIESEC abroad picks you up at the airport and brings you to your room, apartment, or host family. This housing will also be arranged by AIESEC abroad. AIESEC locals will also show you around in the city or village where you are staying. but in many AIESEC committees, activities are organized frequently. On the one hand they will consist of parties, etc. On the other hand people will want to show their country and culture to you. Reintegration AIESEC supports you in making the re-adjustment process when you return home after your internship. When you are back of your internship also a reintegration is part of the process. You will meet up with your AIESEC coach to share your experiences and evaluate your stay abroad. Experience story Also we would like you to write an experience story. These stories are very valuable for future students who want to do an internship via AIESEC Groningen.

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4. Experience stories Mathijs, Global Internship Program, Indonesia During the four month period of July until October I was very lucky to have the opportunity to go to Jakarta, Indonesia for Global Internship Program. A Dutch market researcher had plans to start up a market research company in Indonesia, and he was looking for a Dutch intern that could bridge the gap between the Indonesian employees and the (mostly) Dutch companies. On a daily basis my major task was just market researching, but my extra task was to create a general understanding about the Dutch culture and language for the Indonesian employees. It was a real challenge since the cultures are so different. Aspects such as power distance (how an employee sees and reacts to it’s superiors) and showing initiative are very different between the Dutch and the Indonesian. I was the only intern in the company since it is a small company. The AIESEC in Jakarta (UI) is also very different with ours. In the Netherlands, AIESEC is much more run like a business, whilst in Jakarta it feels more like a group of friends. On a organizational point of view this has got some bad side-effects. The communications and deviation of roles are very unclear. People do not really know who does what and therefore some mistakes can be made, although they were very motivated and driven. However, on a personal basis AIESEC in Indonesia feels very warm. It was always fun to hang out with them and I could feel that they really had an interest in me, they wanted me to join them in everything they did. I was surprised how few AIESEC’ers from over there had done an internship abroad, they explained to me that it is just very difficult to find an GIP for an Indonesian.

Furthermore, I had the possibility to arrive in Indonesia six weeks before my internship started so I was able to travel a bit. I think everybody should do this if they can, because it gives you a great cultural understanding and therefore you have the possibility to accommodate yourself a bit. I travelled through the islands of Java, Bali and Lombok. I’ve climbed vulcanos (Merapi and Bromo), visited temples, surfed, and made many friends. After my travels I stayed with a host family for 2 weeks, this gave me a jumpstart in the city of Jakarta. They showed me

some nice places and could make some friends right from the start. After my stay there I rented an apartment, so I had the freedom to do whatever I want. Although the internship was very interesting and I learned a lot from it. The most lessons I learned were on a personal basis. When staying in a far country by yourself, having nobody familiar, you really get to learn yourself a little bit better. I can recommend this experience to everybody!

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Ian Mouser, Global Community Development Program, Romania It will not be easy to describe, what has proven to be, the most intense summer of my life in one single experience story, but I will definitely do my best! From July 5th until August 27th 2011 I was in Romania in a city called Craiova for an AIESEC development internship. I was participating in a project developed by AIESEC Craiova called 'Learn to Change the Future'. This project was developed for local high school students and aimed at mainly ecological subjects. Other topics like for instance cultural awareness were also covered. The project had two main features, namely workshops and outside activities. We were completely free to determine the content of the workshop and the message we wanted to bring across. I loved the fact that we received so much freedom in this; it gave us the opportunity to transmit our own personal messages in the trainings which made them far more genuine and sincere. The earlier mentioned activities were more informal than the workshop and were always held outside. Among the activities there was a bicycle tour, a treasure hunt in the park, the cleaning of the riverside, a recycling challenge were the students had to make clothes out of recyclable materials and so much more! I am truly amazed with AIESEC Craiova and more than thankful for everything they arranged for us trainees! We were with 15 trainees from 9 different countries (Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Brazil, Egypt and Iran), all 15 of us were staying together in a big house in the centre of Craiova. There were 4 bedrooms we had to share, one big living room, a gigantic beautiful garden, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. In the house we had everything we needed and if there was something missing or wrong there were always AIESECers willing and able to help us. I think it is fair to say that we developed our own trainee culture. This is inevitable when you live together in one house and when you are constantly together and have to share almost everything. Everybody was very open, friendly and enthusiastic; the consequence of this was that we soon became a very close group of friends. Apart from us 15 trainees there were almost always some of the local AIESECers around in our house. They stopped by very regularly to help us out or simply have some fun with us! The local AIESECers joined us in our activities, but also very actively involved us in their activities! We went to their parties, made a big camping trip together to the seaside and I participated in my first AIESEC conference. This conference was a Local Motivational Seminar for AIESEC. It was a great conference with some inspiring sessions, teambuilding and a lot of great parties! Apart from having an amazing summer I also learned a lot of valuable lessons this summer that I will definitely carry with me the coming years. Apart from developing my professional skills such as making presentations, actually presenting them and arranging activities, I learned the most on the side of people skills. Being so close with all these different people from different cultures really made me more aware of who I am and also of whom I want to be. These people helped me to look at things from a new and fresh point of view and this was extremely important for me. I learned so much about ways of communicating and cultural differences. Even the smallest things like an inappropriate joke that unintentionally insulted somebody turned out to be big learning points me. It is hard to express how valuable this experience was for me. One thing however is sure: I will cherish the memories of this summer forever!

Do you want to read more experience stories? Go to www.experienceaiesec.blogspot.com

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5. Got interested?

When to apply? You can join the AIESEC programmes all year round. We recommend students who want to go abroad with AIESEC to subscribe about 3 to 4 months (3 for GDCP, 4 for GIP) before they want to start their internship. Interview As already mentioned you have to attend an interview in order to get accepted for an AIESEC internship. After your application we will contact you to set a date for the interview, usually within 2 weeks.

Subscription Send your English CV, Motivation Letter and a print-out of your obtained ECTs to Groningen@aiesec.nl What needs to be stated in the motivation letter: - Why do you want to go on an internship? - Why do you want to go with AIESEC? - For how long do you want to go? - Can you give us an indication about the countries you would like to go to? - Do you want to participate in the Global Community Development Programme or the Global Internship Programme? - On which of the selection days are you available for an interview?

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Contact information AIESEC Groningen For more information you can always contact us; Address: AIESEC Groningen Herebinnensingel 2, 1st floor 9711 GH Groningen Phone: +31(0)50-879 5640 E-mail: groningen@aiesec.nl If you want more information or take a look in the internship database, please visit our open office hours every Tuesday from 11.00 to 13.00 or Thursday from 14.00 to 16.00.