Organisation Profile
Issue No. 36 - August/September 2007
AIESEC expanding our global links
AIESEC, the world's largest student organisation, was founded in 1948 as the Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales. Beginning as a European student fraternity under the shadow of war, it has grown quite a bit in 60 years.
Worldwide, AIESEC now has a membership base of more than 22,000 students and graduates. Active membership in SA is about 75, with several hundred attending events and subscribing to the AIESEC newsletter.
The first South Australian link was forged in 1974 with a local committee at the SA Institute of Technology (now the University of South Australia). The University of Adelaide followed the next year and committee at Flinders University in 1996 brought all three major universities in South Australia into the fold.
“Our members are drawn from every segment of the student community at the three major universities in Adelaide and study degrees in a broad range of disciplines from psychology and international studies through to chemical engineering and economics,” says state manager, Bryn Lucas.
Within AIESEC, members are able to develop tangible skills tailored to their interests and career aspirations by working in different areas of the organisation and facilitating different elements of the exchange process. These skills enable AIESEC Alumni to differentiate themselves from their graduate peers when they enter the workforce.
The capstone of the AIESEC Experience however, is our Graduate Exchange Program which gives members the opportunity to live and work for up to eighteen months in any of our one hundred member countries in various fields.
Pavel Kohout, an AIESEC member from the Czech Republic is currently employed at Clipsal Australia as Project Coordinator under the Graduate Exchange Program. Gizelle Sonneman, HR for Clipsal says the AIESEC graduate program aids our company in filling skills gaps on key projects.
“Pavel's different way of thi...
