IASHINGTON International Conference

Everyday on our campus, I see ambling students with half closed eyes, yearning for excitement. This ambiance always makes me depressed and I really needed some change! Change happened: last week, I attended the most exciting conference in my life!

Iaşi - "The city of great loves"

Having never attended an international conference before, I seized this opportunity to challenge myself, to increase my flexibility, to go beyond my comfort zone, to meet interesting people, to improve my English skills, to attend the communication workshop (some content see below) ... and of course to have a lot of fun!!

On Facebook I met Fabrice, an AIESECer from Mannheim who also wanted to attend IASHINGTON so we booked our flight together from Frankfurt via Vienna to Iaşi. The night before the conference I stayed in his flat in Mannheim (no I am not gay, dear girls) because the ICE train to the airport left Mannheim at 4:40 in the morning :-)

When we landed at the international airport in Iaşi, which had only one runway, two AIESECers from the organizational committee received us and then drove us to the dormitories (clean double bedrooms - legendary!). The reception was nearly perfect from my point of view; all my needs as a participant were fulfilled. However, the first impression you get from Iaşi itself, is that the infrastructure is not the same as ours in Germany. If you are lucky, you might still see some Trabant on the roads! :D But, it didn't matter because the people that were with me during the conference were so incredibly gracious that these flaws didn't bother me at all.

I was happy to see Voichita again who did an internship in Kaiserslautern this year and who attended the conference, too!

There were international students from Greece, Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic and of course Romania all of whom participated in the conference and made it really special.

Leadership & Project Management Session

In the morning and afternoon we had some track sessions. I chose the communication track and learned a lot of interesting things about positioning and differentiating myself, motivating teams, planning speeches, delivering speeches (with video recording), self branding, negotiating, ... etc. etc. and showing passion! Some of the speakers from Romania seemed to be really WELL known there and were hence really talented.

The Palace of Culture

In the evenings, we had a lot of fun, as predicted! We attended an excellent wine tasting, had hilarious parties, went to the botanic garden and visited the city. I have to admit that Romanian women are, in general, much prettier than in Germany (subjective impression) - and there were even some pretty singles in Iaşi - in contrast to Kaiserslautern. By the way, I learned some very interesting things about women :D but I will not dive into details here ;)

At the end of the conference there was a public global village where the foreign participants of the conference represented their countries and cultures. Because Fabrice an I coincidentally are both half French, half German we presented both countries.

Little advice to AIESECer's for future conferences in Romania: Don't say "Prost" it means "stupid" in Romanian. You should rather say "noroc" - "good luck".

City tour

I thank the whole organizational committee, the speakers and all participants for this unforgettable adventure!!!

Raphaël