I am supposed to be making my final presentation for AIESEC that will be given next week saturday. I have some ideas, but I have no ambition to start such a project. I am missing Madison and more importantly, AIESEC.
This project has started a time consuming self/world reflection:
First, being a trainee not near your host LC sucks. What is worse is that before I left Madison, I was trying to preach to our members in-charge of Madison's corporate accounts not to create such traineeships. This past summer we had a trainee in Milwaukee. Now Milwaukee is fine, except that I meant Milwaukee in the general sense. The trainee was stationed in suburbia. Only one of our LC members lived close to her and only one person in Madison had a car so that we could visit her. Yes, the trainee enjoyed her job and we started a partnership with a "local" company, but at what price. Ali, our LCP, I thought did a great job of trying to get her involved with our LC. The problem: she didn't live near us, she didn't work near us, she didn't hang out near us; we were practically in different countries. Now, some members from our LC have said that she was a bad trainee because she wasn't an @ member, but I think that's bullshit. That girl would call Ali at least 2 times per week asking if she could hang out. She went on the crazy trip with us up to Jenna's cabin, even though she was NOT a country girl. I thought she did what she could in the short time she was in the US. Then we get another trainee who works IN MADISON, and he's a godsend. Somehow the LC attributes this to being in @, but again, I don't see it. He lived with a member for a time; you can't get any more personal than that. What's worse is that before I left to come here, the EB was seriously thinking about accepting a trainee that would stay in Green Bay. GREEN BAY! This city is over 2.5 hours from Madison. CHICAGO IS CLOSER. I know our LC hasn't had trainees in awhile and people were complaining about how hard it is to raise trainees in such a small city (even though Green Bay is 25% as big as Madison), but I never heard people of saying we should do exchange in Chicago. Luckily, the traineeship fell through, and the exchange never happened. I am making the most of my experience in suburbia, but in the US, there is absolutely no reason why we should be creating partnerships like the above mentioned ones. Yes we want to create change, but how do you create change, when no one around you wants to change. This is why Delphi got such a bad reputation. Yes, we were exchanging people and yes @ers were getting great ‘real-world experience’ working with said company and trainees, but how much change occurred? Most of the trainees had families already. They were coming to the US, NOT TO EXPERIENCE THE US, but to advance their careers. Yes, they are human beings and while they were here they enjoyed talking to some of us. I just don’t feel they actually changed their perspectives. When you have to take care of your family, how much time are you going to have left to meet new people in a culture you don’t understand, in a language you barely speak, and a place you didn’t voluntarily sign-up to go?
I am now thoroughly off the subject of missing Madison.
I left AIESEC-Madison with two bad flavors lingering in my mouth. One was the way we were going about raising traineeships (above) and the other was the general atmosphere of the LC. What I miss most is the old LC. Somehow when I and the other EB/experienced members brought along the newbies from last fall, we missed something. I could blame the mono, but I don’t think that was it. When I left this summer to go on my journey, I felt most of the members in Madison’s LC were leading duel lives. They would share their feelings in AIESEC meetings and then go home to their ‘other’ friends and pretend like they did nothing that day. There was no integration of AIESEC into their lives. There is not a single friend of mine that doesn’t know the name AIESEC or what we do. I didn’t preach or try to convert them; I didn’t have to. Just talking about what I did with my time was enough. I felt everyone else was the same. Most of the people the LC looked up to, Williams, Trent, Burbs, Ali, Jenna, all integrated it into their lives. There was no difference between a friend and an AIESECer. We would do things together and try to include all of our friends in the activities. Now it seems like the members separate their friends. They have @ friends that they do certain things with and then they have their regular friends that they do different things with and you can’t mix the two.
All I think about is how I, being on the EB, could’ve let it happen. Granted, maybe it was just growing pains for the LC and now everything could be normal again, but this is how I left. Now I am trying to reflect on what I’ve done in Japan, but all I’m thinking about is what I want to do in Madison. I’m always looking towards the future; my curse forever.
This project has started a time consuming self/world reflection:
First, being a trainee not near your host LC sucks. What is worse is that before I left Madison, I was trying to preach to our members in-charge of Madison's corporate accounts not to create such traineeships. This past summer we had a trainee in Milwaukee. Now Milwaukee is fine, except that I meant Milwaukee in the general sense. The trainee was stationed in suburbia. Only one of our LC members lived close to her and only one person in Madison had a car so that we could visit her. Yes, the trainee enjoyed her job and we started a partnership with a "local" company, but at what price. Ali, our LCP, I thought did a great job of trying to get her involved with our LC. The problem: she didn't live near us, she didn't work near us, she didn't hang out near us; we were practically in different countries. Now, some members from our LC have said that she was a bad trainee because she wasn't an @ member, but I think that's bullshit. That girl would call Ali at least 2 times per week asking if she could hang out. She went on the crazy trip with us up to Jenna's cabin, even though she was NOT a country girl. I thought she did what she could in the short time she was in the US. Then we get another trainee who works IN MADISON, and he's a godsend. Somehow the LC attributes this to being in @, but again, I don't see it. He lived with a member for a time; you can't get any more personal than that. What's worse is that before I left to come here, the EB was seriously thinking about accepting a trainee that would stay in Green Bay. GREEN BAY! This city is over 2.5 hours from Madison. CHICAGO IS CLOSER. I know our LC hasn't had trainees in awhile and people were complaining about how hard it is to raise trainees in such a small city (even though Green Bay is 25% as big as Madison), but I never heard people of saying we should do exchange in Chicago. Luckily, the traineeship fell through, and the exchange never happened. I am making the most of my experience in suburbia, but in the US, there is absolutely no reason why we should be creating partnerships like the above mentioned ones. Yes we want to create change, but how do you create change, when no one around you wants to change. This is why Delphi got such a bad reputation. Yes, we were exchanging people and yes @ers were getting great ‘real-world experience’ working with said company and trainees, but how much change occurred? Most of the trainees had families already. They were coming to the US, NOT TO EXPERIENCE THE US, but to advance their careers. Yes, they are human beings and while they were here they enjoyed talking to some of us. I just don’t feel they actually changed their perspectives. When you have to take care of your family, how much time are you going to have left to meet new people in a culture you don’t understand, in a language you barely speak, and a place you didn’t voluntarily sign-up to go?
I am now thoroughly off the subject of missing Madison.
I left AIESEC-Madison with two bad flavors lingering in my mouth. One was the way we were going about raising traineeships (above) and the other was the general atmosphere of the LC. What I miss most is the old LC. Somehow when I and the other EB/experienced members brought along the newbies from last fall, we missed something. I could blame the mono, but I don’t think that was it. When I left this summer to go on my journey, I felt most of the members in Madison’s LC were leading duel lives. They would share their feelings in AIESEC meetings and then go home to their ‘other’ friends and pretend like they did nothing that day. There was no integration of AIESEC into their lives. There is not a single friend of mine that doesn’t know the name AIESEC or what we do. I didn’t preach or try to convert them; I didn’t have to. Just talking about what I did with my time was enough. I felt everyone else was the same. Most of the people the LC looked up to, Williams, Trent, Burbs, Ali, Jenna, all integrated it into their lives. There was no difference between a friend and an AIESECer. We would do things together and try to include all of our friends in the activities. Now it seems like the members separate their friends. They have @ friends that they do certain things with and then they have their regular friends that they do different things with and you can’t mix the two.
All I think about is how I, being on the EB, could’ve let it happen. Granted, maybe it was just growing pains for the LC and now everything could be normal again, but this is how I left. Now I am trying to reflect on what I’ve done in Japan, but all I’m thinking about is what I want to do in Madison. I’m always looking towards the future; my curse forever.
posted by Bruhaha at 3:59 AM
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