AIESEC is an international student organization (perhaps the largest such organization) that was first founded in 1948 and has now, after 59 years, reached Iran. The AIESEC in Iran website has some information on how this happened. Also check out the Building AIESEC in Iran weblog. I was invited to the AIESEC information meeting on September 26th at the University of Tehran, and this post is a summary of the meeting and my views on AIESEC in Iran.
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Neda Golshan was the main host of the show, and a person well chosen to demonstrate the ideal vision of an Iranian AIESECer, as they’re called. Her energetic yet assertive and powerful style of speech, which was delivered in almost fluent English, portrayed the image of the empowered Iranian university student with an international composure.
Neda started off by approaching the audience (mostly composed of undergraduate students, and a few grad students) with a simple question: “Who wants an AIESEC t-shirt?!” After an awkward pause, and some skeptical and curious looks, someone raised an arm. Neda simply walked up to her and gave her an AIESEC t-shirt for free. She then went on to make the point that sometimes ceasing an opportunity can be as easy as that, and you just have to step forward. This stepping forward, she said, was why the participants were attending this meeting. Quite an inspiring opening!
The History of AIESEC was then presented in a series of powerpoint slides with a nice musical soundtrack, after which Jonas Lilienthal explained the AIESEC vision (Jonas amazingly plans to stay in Iran for a full year as part of AIESEC Germany’s efforts to help the startup and development of AIESEC Iran). Having been established right after World War II, AIESEC’s core ideals have an international peace-seeking, friendship-building spirit. Read more about “The AIESEC way” here.
The next person to take the stage was Sepideh Pashami, who talked about the AIESEC experience. Despite the tinge of ambiguity in her explanations, three main advantages of being an AIESECer were clearly identified in her talk:
- Various opportunities to practice and experience leadership,
- the chance to take part in many international conferences, and
- the prospect of gaining experience living and working in other countries
As an example of leadership experience, the opportunity that students had to organize and lead this meeting came to my mind. But other than that, from the speaker’s explanations, I did not get a clear picture of what exactly these leadership roles could be, and how they may be created.
The first question raised in the first Q&A session, was a witty remark by Hesam Torabi, a computer science whiz: “Can I have a t-shirt?!” In reply to which he received only a smile. In response to “What does AIESEC stand for?” Jonas stood up and uttered the exact French words, and made everybody blush and grin at their own lack of understanding of the French language. I could not hear most of the other questions since the inquirers did not have microphones.
After the Q&A and a short break Fahimeh Behboodi, a very energetic mechanical engineering major from the UofT who is one of the main founders of AIESEC in Iran, talked about her internship experience in Berlin and how she became familiar with AIESEC.
She described a session where everyone got to know the countries of other AIESEC interns through presentations given by each intern on his/her country. Fahimeh said her presentation about Iran was a great hit and everybody was extremely interested. This is not surprising considering the general lack of understanding in western countries about what Iran is really like.
Fahimeh got familiar with a group of AIESECers in germany who were interested in expanding AIESEC to Iran. And thus started the project to get AIESEC here with the help of the Germans and fellow Iranians such as Maziar Ebrahimi.
The next person to speak was Dr. Shekarchizade, assistant professor in the civil engineering dept of the UofT, and president of IAESTE in Iran. IAESTE is the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience, but it is just that, and so differs from AIESEC which involves a broader range of activities.
Dr. Shekarchizade had found an audience of students who could speak English and were interested in international activity. So he took the opportunity to introduce IAESTE although his delivery was rather boring compared to the energy that the young host, Neda and other young speakers like Fahimeh had in their presentations. Nevertheless his talk included several interesting points:
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He called the UofT the most important university in Iran, while pointing out that it is not ranked among the top 1000 universities of the world. This is unfortunate considering the existing capacity of the professors and students and the labs etc.
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One of the reasons for this low ranking is the neglect of international relationships. Because of the situation after the revolution Iran has been a country pretty much “outside” the international community and has not pursued international relationships. Naturally, higher education has suffered from this
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More than 60% of the offers for exchange that come from IAESTE to Iranian students are for engineering majors, with none of the other fields having any more than 17% of the share. Foreign students to come to Iran through IAESTE are few and Dr. Sehkarchizade described them as rather courageous considering what the world has been told about Iran.
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Like AIESEC, IAESTE used to exist in Iran before the Islamic revolution, but then ceased to exist afterwards until recently. IAESTE re-started in 2002, AIESEC re-started in 2006.
At this point Elham Tavassoli took the microphone and talked briefly about the international conferences part of the AIESEC experience. She described them as exciting events that will not bore you to sleep like many typical conferences. She talked about how she herself has found many nice and active friends in these events.
Maziar Ebrahimi, who is studying for an MBA at Sharif University of Technology, currently plays the role of leader for the AIESEC in Iran team. Given the thirst of the Iranian job market for MBAs, specially graduates of Sharif, it is somewhat surprising to me that he has so much time to devote to AIESEC. He took the stage to speak about leadership.
He summarized the AIESEC experience as “activating leadership”. I specially enjoyed his definition of the term. He said “Leadership is making mistakes”, this instantly reminded me of an inspiring speech which I will get to at the end of this post. Maziar continued “Leadership is making mistakes and not making the same mistakes again. AIESEC is an international platform for making mistakes! And there are a lot of people to help you learn from those mistakes.”
Overall my opinion about AIESEC for Iranian students is that AIESEC seems to be a great place to hang around with great people and be an active and contributing person. It’s the classiest student organization in town, with its English-speaking flair and international prominence, making it an excellent option for those aiming to have an international presence. But I’m not sure if AIESEC can find many Iranian students with these aspirations who are proficient in English and are willing to spend their time doing voluntary work at AIESEC rather than pursuing paid employment or entrepreneurship opportunities outside of AIESEC.
The process of establishing AIESEC was carried out quite professionally, at least for an organization run by students. I personally observed many of the Gantt charts and project management methods that were utilized during this process and was impressed. They again showed a high level of professionalism in organizing this event. The Q&A segment at the end was particularly notable and was designed better than most Q&A sessions I have seen. The team of young, motivated, energetic, and passionate students who started AIESEC in Iran has done a great and impressive job, and I believe being in the company of such people will influence future members of AIESEC Iran in very positive ways, regardless of anything else they do there.
By the end of the meeting one audience member described AIESEC as involving “So much passion and excitement”, another mentioned “communicating with different countries” and there was lots of positive energy to go around. But I am still skeptical as to whether AIESEC addresses the primary needs of Iranian students, and whether it’s the right place for them to spend all that energy, specially if they are already motivated and passionate enough with clear plans for their future. Nonetheless, AIESEC has finally reached Iran, and I’m sure this can only mean good things for its current and future Iranian members and for the Iranian society as a whole.
In the end, I would like to end this post with a beginning. With the start of the new academic year and the start of AIESEC activities in Iran, and the new foundation of the School of Entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran, I would like to present the following quote from the second episode of the TV series “Jack and Bobby” to all my old and new friends at the School of Entrepreneurship and AIESEC, and of course, the readers of this blog. In the spirit of beginnings, I present to you Grace McCallister’s Moonlight Address to the students of Plains State University:
Good evening. I want to welcome you tonight to… a renaissance.
For some of you this night marks a return to your college life, for some of you a new beginning. And so, upon the eve of the tremendous journey upon which you are all embarking, I’d like to offer you a thought to take with you.
Listen carefully: you will fail here. All of you. College is not the culmination of your high school career. It is the beginning of your adult life. Only it is a slow sweet beginning that feels nothing like what life and all the attending obligations will eventually bring. So fail here… This is your chance.
Do things you know you can’t do, or think you can’t do but hope in your deepest most secret hidden heart that you can.
Be bad at things. Be embarrassed. Be vulnerable. Go out on a limb. Or two. Or twelve.
The harder you fall, the farther you’ll rise. And the louder you fail, the clearer the distant bell of your future will ring. Failure is a gift. Welcome it. There are people who spend their lives wondering how they became the people they became, how certain chances passed them by and why they didn’t take the road less traveled. Those people are not you.
You have the front-row seat to your own transformation. And in transforming yourself, you might just transform the world. Believe that, and embrace the new person you’re becoming. This is your moment. Now. Not ten minutes from now, not tomorrow, really now. Know that, truly in your bones, and wake up each morning remembering it. And then keep going.
