My Experience at AIESEC

It is an International non-governmental and Not-for-profit organization that provides young people with leadership opportunities abroad to make a progressive social impact.

7 min readOct 19, 2019

This article is an overview of my experience in this amazing organization which changes an individual with its eccentric aura.

Why this was a turning point in my life?

Being an AIESECer itself speak volumes about a person and their personality, from managing their Leadership development analysis every quarter parallelly with their academics and social life is much harder than what it seems to be. This was an unprecedented experience which truly has built and structured my thought process and the way I perceive each and everything in my life.
Hence being in this organization will teach an individual about time management and numerous other soft skills which will be an asset throughout their lifetime.

What is AIESEC?

AIESEC is a french acronym which says Association Internationale des étudiants en sciences économiques et commerciales, which translates to the International Association of students in economics and commercial sciences.
The motto of AIESEC is “Activating Youth Leadership Since 1948.”
Europe was recovering from the post-war consequences that dealt with a grave loss to its population. Europe needed leaders to bolster the unfortunate state of the continent. Factories and enterprises needed something more than just business development, and as the war had severely damaged the relations between these nations, it was critical to find a way to unite all of them for a greater good.
This validates the purpose of the organizations which is Peace and fulfilment of humankind’s potential. AIESEC is an independent, non-political, and international organization which seeks to establish and promote the friendly relations between the members. This is done by the student exchanges between the AIESEC entities where the student volunteers or works for non-profit organizations/startups based on any of the 17 Sustainable Development goals, set by the United Nations general assembly in 2015 for the year 2030.
Today, AIESEC is present in 127 nations with more than 30,000 members and 500 power conferences to select its leadership over 100,000 students.

How did I know about AIESEC?

Similar to most of the students who have recently joined their college I too was very excited about all the opportunities, I would be getting in my upcoming years in college. I love travelling and I had this bucket list of mine to travel solo abroad whilst I was a college student.

The International summer exchange provided by AIESEC in VIT was the opportunity I was looking for. It was a volunteering experience in a foreign country for 6 weeks. So I applied for a project in Athens, Greece seeking a volunteering experience which was apt for my background which is “Engineering”.

My Volunteering experience in Greece

Fortunately, I got an acceptance from AIESEC in NKUA and a project where I need to teach Physics at a Summer camp organized by Planet Physics. This project was under the 4th Sustainable development goal, set by the UNGA, which ensures inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The children at the summer camp were from an age group of 7–12 years and most of them were unfamiliar with English. So my first challenge was to effectively communicate with them and make them understand better. My colleagues who were Greek helped me with the translation and taught me a few Greek slangs which I could use daily, Such as:

Geia saas, Ti kaanis? — Hello, how are you?
Me lene Ishan, Posi lene? — My name is Ishan, What is your name?
Kala — Good
Nai — Yes!
Ohi — No!

Planet Physics’ main motto is to encourage, promote and support physics education by making learning interesting and interactive. My co-workers were physics major students and most of them were greek.

My job was to perform basic physics experiments to help children to have a clear understanding of the underlying physics concept. Adding to this I also spoke about India and Indian culture to get them to know about our great heritage and diversity. Most of the children were astonished when I mentioned I am an Indian and I live in India. Some of them even asked me whether I have seen an Elephant or have ridden one.

Our accommodation

I stayed at Stacs Student accommodation in Athens sharing a dorm with 5 other people, all coming from a different country. I remember at some point of time I was the only Indian in my dorm (Different timelines of the projects for different people)

Sharing your accommodation with different people who spoke different languages and the only thing in common was the English language, though none of us was fluent in it, was a huge challenge for me. So to bond better, we started making our countries’ cuisines, had discussions about the current political status of respective counties and the festivals. In my case, I told them about our colourful festivals and Bollywood.

My roommates and I travelled every weekend to a place nearby some of them were Meteora, Poros, Zakynthos, Patras, and Aegina. Check my Instagram for all the photos.

My learnings from this experience.

Travelling to a foreign country all by yourself, getting acclimatized to their environment, making new friends, learning their language, their culture and managing your finances are few of the lessons, I learnt through this Volunteering experience.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for an individual, where they can access leadership development through cross-cultural internships, and volunteer exchange experiences

My Tenure at AIESEC in VIT

After this wonderful volunteering experience, I joined AIESEC in VIT. I served as an International relations manager during my first term, where I had to oversee the Outgoing Global Volunteer’s foreign operations with countries like Greece, Turkey, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and other AIESEC entities. Then I was a Customer relations manager for Global Volunteer, where I had to pitch the Volunteering experience to fellow students, tell them about how amazing this opportunity is and what I learnt and did while I volunteered in Greece.

This was my first managerial experience, which helped me build my skill sets and taught me so much about the organization and its workflow. During my tenure, I learnt about negotiation, organizational behaviour and most important leadership. AIESEC has a holistic approach to inculcate the idea of leadership and get us to know our potential.

AIESEC Conferences

One of the best highlights from my journey in AIESEC was the conferences. AIESEC conferences where the learning extravaganza, where you learnt skills like Business development, Pitching, Team Building and management while having a culturally diverse environment consisting of people from all over the world.

I have attended two of the AIESEC conferences, the first one was Regional youth leadership conference 2017, at Bengaluru and the other was the Local conference 2017, at Pondicherry. Both of the conferences were a delightful experience where I extended my knowledge about the organization manifolds and learnt to apply the skills taught during these conferences.

How to volunteer via AIESEC?

You can also go on an international student exchange program through AIESEC, just like I did. You just have to follow a few steps:

You have to find the nearest AIESEC entity and give them your timeline stating when you can volunteer or Intern.
Register for any of the programs which are Global Volunteering, Global Entrepreneurship or Global Talent based on your qualification and interest.