My AIESEC Experience Thus Far

It feels like a lifetime ago that I went searching for a student organization that would allow me to stay in touch with my love for travel, but it is not that long ago. Last year I lived and worked in Paris and met many people from around the world. On returning to Australia at the start of the year I knew that I needed to do something more than just study and went looking for a student club that I could join, which would enable me to maybe do some more travel and have some other adventures overseas before I finish my degree at the end of next year. However, what I found was so much more than that.

I joined a handful of student organizations at the start of the year because I didn’t really know what each one was, and what each one did, so I figured, like most things, trial and error was the best way to find out which one was suitable for me. The first days of AIESEC were interesting, but it took me a while to get even the slightest grasp of what the group was. I took a leap of faith and went to the State Conference over a weekend in April, to a little site in Flinders somewhere with 80 plus new people I had never met. I, like many other new members, didn’t know a single other person, so it was a strange experience, heading out to the countryside, to who-knows-where, with total strangers, to find out more about an organization I knew nothing about. I remember my fear that AIESEC might be some fundamentalist Christian group or that there would be a no-alcohol policy at the camp. However, I soon found out that, although AIESEC is a force unto itself, it is not fundamentalist, and it certainly doesn’t have a no-alcohol policy.

After State Conference I had a better idea of what the organization was. It wasn’t just about exchange, although that’s the main purpose for the group. I discovered that there was much more to it, all centered around the people of AIESEC. Essentially, the organization works to enable people to go on exchange from Australia to other countries, and for people from other countries to come on exchange to Australia. However, it also enables new friendships of people who would have otherwise never met, to foster understanding between different cultures, to improve individual’s management and organizing abilities, to challenge people and push them from their comfort zone, and to expand people’s belief in themselves and help them discover that they are only limited by their own perception of their world.

I soon realized after State Conference that AIESEC was probably going to dominate my life as I discovered that everything the organization believed in and stood for essentially aligned with my own beliefs and goals. I had found an opportunity to challenge and improve myself, while meeting new people and discovering new cultures, and to top it all off it opened up a world of exchange to me. Exchange possibilities such as going to a development conference in Africa, helping set-up committees in countries like Yemen or Bahrain, working for a non-profit organization in Veitnam or China, teaching English in Romania, or working in a business management firm in Brazil, or Russia, or South Africa, or South Korea, or Canada, or anywhere… The possibilities are truly endless.

My world is simply limited by me and what I believe I can do. You discover in AIESEC, through real experiences, that you can truly do anything that you believe you can do. You realize that in the past, the only reason you didn’t try something is because you thought you couldn’t do it, and looking back you discover that it was YOU who stopped you from achieving and nothing else. Everyone has the amazing ability to do wonderful things, if you just try and do it, succeed or fail, try, and try again and before you know it, that event or goal that you thought could never be done, will be accomplished and you will be looking for the next great challenge to conquer.

After National Conference in July this year, AIESEC Melbourne came back to university with a renewed vigour and true understanding of this limitless potential. We are now striving to pass on this opportunity to as many people as we can and have them living and working their dreams overseas or in Melbourne. All members of the organization in Melbourne work so hard for AIESEC to enable themselves, other members, and new recruits terrific opportunities in Melbourne and around the world. We go to uni and attend classes, but after learning about event management or human resources, we don’t just go home and open a book and do some more study, we attend meetings with Melbourne businesses, organize our own events, strategise new possibilities for the future, and develop our members in the direction they want to go. In AIESEC you aren’t just studying at uni and meeting friends, you are developing an aspect of yourself which other people won’t develop for many years in their life, or may never develop. As an AIESECer you are leagues ahead of the rest of the pack, but it doesn’t matter because you are achieving amazing things with wonderful people and having a great time doing it.