I know I tend to post in Dutch most of the time but due to the international context of this one I’ll make an exception. Feel free to translate it to Dutch or any other language with the Google Translate widget at the righthand side of this webpage.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to be part of a very special and important event for students in Europe, the 20th European Student Convention stakeholders forum – further referred to as ESC20 – which took place in the city of Leuven (Belgium). The ESC20 already started on thursday but I had other commitments – student council and mandatory courses. I decided to join the other volunteers of VVS on saturday.
My tasks consisted out of getting the auditoria prepped and other logistical or IT-related tasks like putting the twitter-feed up and managing the flow of the presentations. These were no big tasks yet required some effort to accomplish, especially the logistical parts. I did like the idea of the Twitter-feed being an avid tweeter myself and knowing I would be able to attend every plenary session.
So I started on saturday morning preparing the auditorium at the law faculty for the first session that day. Providing electricity to those in need of it, preparing new badges and getting some IT-issues sorted. Being responsible for the slides and Twitter meant I had to sit at the same place as the panelists, providing a unique viewing angle. When there were no Slides to present I showed a realtime Twitter feed of all posts containing ‘#t4scl’, the hash-tag associated with the ‘Time for Student Centered Learning’ project of the European Students’ Union. This meant that all tweets made by the people in- or outside the session could be viewed by everyone, making it a fun way to react to question or just express your appreciation for ESC20.
Twitter being used during the ESC20 sessions
The second session was also held in the same manner after which we went to ALMA2 for a nice meal. In the afternoon five different workshops were organized and provided time for most of the volunteers to relax and joke around a bit. This picture of me with the EU flag was taking at that moment (I twittered it as the ‘EU flagrante’ due to my smartphone having a nasty autocorrection)
Picture of me and the fabulous EU flag
In the evening a beer-tasting was held by LOKO, the student council of Leuven. The tasting had a focus on Belgian abbey and trappist beers, our finest! This event was followed up by a nice party at the Albatros venue in Leuven. Consequence: little sleep that night for most of us volunteers and participants.
On sunday ESC20 came to a close and the last sessions were held at the rectorate building of the KULeuven. This meant we had to move all our stuff to that building. Yet it was worth the effort, you don’t get the chance to be in the promotion hall every day. After another session which I followed with changing amounts of attention due to a lack of sleep the previous night, we were rewarded for our work with a nice ‘walking dinner’. After that the ESC20 had ended and all that was left was moving aal our stuff some place safe, my little Renault Twingo proved to be of great help.
It was an amazingly good weekend for me. From what I’ve been able to attend I’ve learned a lot about Student Centered Learning, the main topic of ESC20. Apart from that I was also able to get to know more about student participation on an international level as well as student participation in other european countries.
I know I’ve probably forgotten to mention loads of things so here are some more pictures, telling more than words.
