How we survived the “Coronavirus semester”
Throwback to February of 2020: AIESEC in Tartu is looking for new members and having info evenings to introduce their organization to potential new members. The current members are talking about how things are done in AIESEC and what kind of fun you can have here and about the experience that is AIESEC. Come March and we have new members who have taken the brave step to join our organization. For a few weeks, they get to enjoy meeting current and other new members, attend meetings and fun events and begin to understand what AIESEC is really about.
But then suddenly everything comes to a stop and life as we know it is put to a halt as a global pandemic forces us to re-evaluate and change the way things are done. No more meetings face to face, no more conferences or fun events or parties. Just like many other organizations, AIESEC in Tartu was greatly affected by the pandemic, not only due to having to temporarily shut down our main operations but also because the pandemic made it harder for us to offer our members knowledge, experience and a social network — the things we promised them upon joining.
Although each and every one of us has been affected by the pandemic and the measures taken to put an end to it, it has probably been the hardest on our new members. To understand the effect that the Corona pandemic had on their AIESEC experience, 4 new members of AIESEC in Tartu shared their thoughts, Mari-Liis from the Marketing team, Petrik from our Incoming Global Entrepreneur and Talent team, Gloria from the Incoming Global Volunteer team and Diep from the team of Outgoing Exchange.
Before joining AIESEC, the knowledge about the organization varied between them quite a lot, some of them had known about AIESEC for years but others stumbled upon AIESEC by chance. For example, Mari-Liis had heard about us years ago wanting to go volunteering but decided to join the organization in the meantime, whereas Gloria came to our info event out of boredom. But what unites these four people is that they all made a choice to join AIESEC and they haven’t regretted that choice, even in these strange circumstances.
Since we still got to live in a world where gatherings were allowed the first few weeks of March, then during that time the new members got the opportunity to become a part of the organization, already get some knowledge and make some connections. As Petrik said, “A great part about joining AIESEC is that the first few weeks are organized in a way for the new members to really integrate themselves into the teams. There are plenty of introductory events as well as meet-and-greets so that we could get our bearings in the organizations and prepare ourselves for the actual work.” Gloria had similar things to say about pre-quarantine AIESEC, “Before the quarantine, I participated in one Chillax where I talked with several people and everybody was really nice and cute. Oh, and I cleaned our office before the quarantine.”
And just as the work was about to begin, something unexpected happened and we were forced to move our operations online. Thanks to Zoom and Google meets, not much changed in the way work was organized during the pandemic. Teams could still have their meetings and discuss their ideas and tasks but it was definitely an adjustment at first.
What changed was the work that was being done. We had to temporarily suspend our usual operations and come up with new solutions — we can’t complain, that’s how innovation works! Our new members did end up getting the knowledge about how things are usually done in AIESEC and we even had an online conference. Two of the teams got a new task of organizing webinars that none of us had any previous experience with and if we may say so ourselves, they turned out pretty great.
Diep, who was in the organizing team for the webinar Launch Up Your Future: Plan Your Development said, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s also a lot of work. Organizing a webinar is nothing familiar to us, so we kind of have to begin from zero. From preparing the project roadmap, the content plan to actually getting your hands dirty, and working on the scrutinies of the script that will be presented, I have had my hands on it all.” The other webinar that was organized was called Launch Up Your Future: Meet The CEOs where the CEOs of La Muu and AHHAA Science Center joined us to talk about their experience and give some helpful tips on how to succeed in business and life. And both of these events were organized with the help of the Marketing team and Mari-Liis, who said that she has learned a lot more about AIESEC and marketing in general. “I like that AIESEC is so structured and the work is so well-organized. Even during this weird time, we have managed to keep up the good work.”
It is important for us to make people feel connected even in the toughest of times. We have managed to keep the fun side of the organization going with teams having their bonding events online, just talking or playing board games, and Chillaxes for the entire AIESEC in Tartu, playing Jackbox or Minecraft over Discord or having a movie night. All four of the newbies have appreciated these events as they have been a way to relieve stress and just have fun. We also had an internal competition called Spirit Awards during this time where all the teams got to put their creativity to a test in solving different tasks. During all of these events, we managed to get to know each other pretty well, which Mari-Liis confirms herself, “ I have been able to get to know other members and it is so inspirational and motivational to meet new positive, open-minded and outgoing people with the same mindset I have, who want to make things happen and move forward with their lives.”
As the semester is coming to an end and summer is fast approaching, we can say that we’ve managed to survive the quarantine and keep ourselves busy and productive. The new members have gotten a taste of AIESEC and are satisfied with the outcome, Petrik even said that his time in the organization has exceeded the expectations he had when he joined. “So far it has been a great experience and I am grateful that AIESEC has stayed active even in these strange times and continued to find new ways of keeping us engaged!”
And now that the quarantine has ended, we can slowly get back to having some proper AIESEC work and fun.
