View the latest issue - IAESTE

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Alumni N etwork IAESTE Alumnus Jimmy Jack on his traineeship in Poland in 1961 My name is Jimmy Jack and I am from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. I was born and brought up in Belfast but I have been living in Coleraine near the Giant’s Causeway since 1965. I am married to Anne and have three daughters. From 1962 until my retirement in 2004 I was employed as a civil engineer on roads, drainage, bored piling, water and sewerage design and construction working for contractors, consultants, and the civil service. My retirement activities are gardening, music, church, cycling, politics and travel (mostly to visit my daughters in England, Scotland and beyond). I first learned about IAESTE because my brother worked in a chemical factory in Queen’s in Switzerland in 1955 organised by IAESTE. Then at Queens University in 1959 a civil engineering student gave a talk on his IAESTE experiences in Norway and the same year I stayed in Brig with my brother near to where he had worked and in the Simplon Hotel where he had been lodged. Having been impressed by what I had learnt about IAESTE I decided to apply for a place in Germany or Turkey that were offered. I was then offered Krakow in Poland and was immediately intrigued and curious and set about reading about and getting information on the situation in that ‘Iron Curtain’ country. A student’s representative, who had been to Prague, assured me that I would not regret the experience in spite of the presence of ‘secret police’. There was no induction at that time but we were given the names of other participants and were able to compare notes by writing letters to each other. I started my traineeship on the 22nd July 1961. I went to Krakow via Berlin by train to work for ‘Hut im Lenina’ a state owned, Stalin inspired, large industrial complex involving blast furnaces, steel manufacture, rolling mills, cement works, and chemical factories . The experience revealed the sense of Russian exploitation felt by the local workers. It was linguistically difficult to learn much engineering although I was able to compare notes with English speaking students from England, Germany, Austria, France and Yugoslavia (as it was then). I gained an interest in languages, politics and history of other countries and it helped me to relate engineering to society in general. My visit to Auschwitz left a deep impression at that time. It was easy to see why the Polish engineers were so politically aware and humbling to see how their lives had been affected by the traumas of war compared to my relatively sheltered upbringing in a then ‘peaceful’ Northern Ireland. This made me aware of the realities of life in the wider world and in a sense prepared me for a career dominated by the 1968-2000 troubles and prompted me to treat politics as a vital engineering consideration. I think IAESTE is very important for international understanding and cooperation. This is underlined by the causes and effects of climate change, food, water and energy provision by states and multi-national companies and how an organisation can inspire international technical cooperation. I wonder what it would be like, or if it would be possible, to work in Israel or Palestine? IAESTE can make a big impact providing that it is well publicised in the media and technical and professional institutions (such as ICE). Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Belfast 2013 conference even though I could only manage half a day. Jimmy Jack with participants of the 2nd Annual Alumni Conference 1010
Interview with Board Members A lumni N etwork NINA My name is Niina Juuti and I am from Finland. After graduating in 2004 I did a traineeship in Finland and another one in Belgium. Between and after the traineeships I had various short jobs, some also at the office where IAESTE Finland is administrated. I have been working with IAESTE since spring 2007. I started as responsible for outgoing students and the following year I also got the responsibility of National Secretary. On an international level I was the workgroup coordinator for SID WG iPLUG from 2009-2012. In Finland IAESTE is run at CIMO which is also the National Agency for various European Commission programs. We are two people working for IAESTE, but we both also have other tasks. In Finland we have only one Local Committee, in Tampere, but in each technical university we have a contact person who is spreading the word about IAESTE traineeships. I think alumni are a very important resource for IAESTE. They can both encourage the students to do a traineeship with IAESTE and convince their employers to hire an IAESTE trainee. For both groups they have their own story to tell. I have visited 14 countries with IAESTE so far. And there are more to come! During my time with IAESTE I have sent about 400 students abroad. There are too many funny stories, but as I don’t want to embarrass anyone personally, I could summarise our adventurous SID in Rendsburg 2010. We arrived in Hamburg with my Finnish colleague right on time – the famous Icelandic ash cloud covered the European airspace pretty soon after we had safely landed in Germany. About half of the participants never arrived, and the ones who got there spent a great deal of their time figuring out how to get home. As a work group coordinator I was actually quite surprised we got so much work done between all travel arrangements! For the Finnish team the best option to get home was by sea, but the ferries were fully booked for several days after the SID finished. However, as we were in the good hands of the great organising team of IAESTE Germany, we could join the Post Seminar Tour and enjoy some relaxing days in Berlin and Hamburg before heading to Travemünde where our ferry left. 29 hours later we were safely back at home – 5 days later than planned but one experience richer. In the next three years I would like to see IAESTE as a more effective organisation that is better known worldwide. My name is Darko Todorovski and I come from Skopje, Macedonia. I am still a student at the university of st.’Ciril and Methodius’ in Skopje, Macedonia and now I am working as an intern in San Francisco, California. In the IAESTE family I am working for 6 and half years. During this time I have been involved in member raising, fundraising, job raising and especially marketing, also I have been a president of LC Skopje, main coordinator of the AC 2012 and one of the founders of the first Annual Alumni Conference (AAC). IAESTE Macedonia is great national organisation. We are involved in everything that we can lay our hands on. We have DARKO excellent relationship with other organisations and we have quite a lot of alumni who are acting as our guardian angels. Our job raising is increasing year by year, membership is growing and we have an excellent summer reception. Alumni are really important to IAESTE because they are the root of the tree. They were working in their time and they are helping in ours. That is the all point in the alumni, to be there for the new generations the same way when someone was there in their time. I have lost count of the number of countries I have visited with IAESTE but I think it is around 60. If you have asked me how many continents I have visited I will say that only one is left in my list, Australia. I have never had the opportunity to go there, and the funny part is that I have so many friends and relatives there! I am not sure if I have the right answer but roughly speaking, around 350 students have been received and around 200 sent during my time with IAESTE. There are so many funny stories from my time with IAESTE that I wouldn’t know from where to start to tell them all! One of my main vision and goal as a Board member for IAESTE is to have at least a third more jobs before the next Annual Conference, the second one is to promote the organisation on a national and international level. I have a few marketing tricks that I want to share! 11
Page 1 and 2: the IAESTE alumni magazine A N lumn
Page 3 and 4: Message from the General Secretary
Page 5 and 6: former General Secretary, Pauline F
Page 7 and 8: A lumni N etwork IAESTEs Annual Alu
Page 9: ‘Përshëndetje’ means ‘Hello
Page 13 and 14: Annual Conference IAESTE Peru and I
Page 15 and 16: Careers International Top Engineers
Page 17 and 18: Do you want to gain any internship
Page 19 and 20: A lumni IAESTE Alumnus Thomas Hughe
Page 21 and 22: Ali Khan on his traineeship in Toky
Page 23: Contacts Contact Details: IAESTE Ge

View the latest issue - IAESTE

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?