Celebrating #AIESECDAY Today

Almost a year ago, on a hot day, I was walking through the West Mall Complex at SFU when I noticed a particular poster that stood out from the rest. The poster caught my eye because it had images of ice cream. Curious, I actually read the copy of the poster (a rarity for me) and learned more about AIESEC SFU.

Fast forward to today, and I can honestly say that joining AIESEC has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done since coming back to school full-time. I’ve gained some valuable skills through AIESEC. More importantly though, I’ve met many amazing people through it.

What does it stand for?

I often get asked what the acronym AIESEC stands for. To this day, I still can’t tell you – and that’s because it’s in French. According to Wikipedia, the acronym stands for “Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales. If you’re expecting me to pronounce that, then you’re out of luck.

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August 17, 2010

Succeeding with a Group of Type A Individuals (5 Tips)

Photo credit: http://technomarketer.typepad.com/technomarketer/2008/04/developing-pers.html

I just completed my first 400-level Business course ever! Intimidated at first, I quickly adjusted to the course (titled Integrated Marketing Communications – or IMC for short) and eventually got a really great mark.

A huge part of my the IMC course this semester involved a group project. By now, I’m already used to working in teams. If you’re in the Business faculty, you can pretty much expect to have at least one group project per semester. This project was a bit different though as it involved 9 to 11 group members. As far as school projects go, that’s a pretty huge group. And because part of the project is creating synergy among our individual efforts, it took a lot of time to complete, both working individually and as a group.

Another thing that’s unusual with my group is that it was made up of mostly Type A individuals. At the beginning of the semester, two of my classmates already had some idea of how the group project would go because they had friends who had taken the course. They’ve set out to organize a group, ensuring that only the best are in. The result? A team of nine intelligent, competitive individuals acting as a full-service marketing communications agency that will pitch a project to a case study about a cruise line.

Our team did pretty well, but more importantly, we got along well. There were moments of conflicts and disagreements; however, never at one point did we feel like killing each other. And whenever you have 9 talented people in the same room, that’s a good thing.

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June 18, 2010

Decisions: Calculated Risks, Priorities, and Opportunity Costs

Photo Credit: Wordle.net

When I came back to school a few months ago, I made what I thought at that time was a decisive decision – not to do co-op. There were several reasons for this. First, I really thought I was getting old. Getting back to school after a few years off makes you feel that way. Second, I felt that I had enough experience. In my short time with eBay, I’ve held three roles, one of which affected the entire Customer Support organization.

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