Anyone that's known me for the past couple of years has probably seen my Facebook flooded with posts and pictures about some random organization called AIESEC. I joined AIESEC my freshman year at Carolina because one of my friends was in it and mentioned the opportunity to go abroad after joining. I had no idea what I was getting involved in, but at the time I just wanted to be a part of something. I wanted to meet new people and have new experiences and AIESEC just sort of fell in my lap at the right place, and at the right time. With that being said, I never would have guessed how much of an impact this organization would have on me over the past 3 years, and something about it keeps me coming back.
AIESEC is a not-for-profit organization that provides college students all around the world with leadership training and internship opportunities abroad. AIESEC is a french acronym meaning: Association internationale des étudiants en sciences économiques et commerciales (in English: International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences) but because we are a global organization whose member speak many different languages, we never use the extended name, solely going by AIESEC. Located in 124 countries with a network of 90,000 members, we are the largest student-run organization in the world.
AIESEC local committees are dispersed around the world with each entity represented by a college or university. For students to open up a new chapter, they must be affiliated with an official college or university. AIESEC Chapel Hill has been around for a little more than a decade and is housed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is the chapter I've been involved with since freshman year.
AIESEC runs it's organizational aspects similar to any small business. Each local committee has a president, an executive board of vice presidents, and five teams working together towards a common goal. Members are motivated to work for this organization because we're all passionate about what we do and are so invested in creating life-changing experiences for other college students through cultural exchanges.
Over the next couple of blog posts I will go into more detail about our chapter here at UNC Chapel Hill, as well as my role within the organization and what I want to get out of it. This was a very brief overview of the organization as a whole and as I get into more detail about AIESEC, I hope you'll gain a better understanding of why exactly we do what we do. Until then, take a look at this video!
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