Go Abroad through AIESEC

If you've been to the home page of this website, you've probably seen the list of quotes from famous people describing how important, wonderful, life-changing, and just generally fantastic going abroad through AIESEC is.

And, of course, it's all true.  We wouldn't be here if it wasn't.  AIESEC offers an opportunity to step outside your realm of experience, to be immersed in a foreign culture, to live and network with people from across the globe, to have experiences and gain international friendships that will change your life.

But we didn't receive those endorsements because AIESEC itself is amazing. True, we're the largest student-run organization on the planet; true, we partner with the likes of UBS and Deloitte; true, we've produced alumni ranging from Nobel Prize winners to heads of state to the Secretary General of the UN.

In the end, though, AIESEC is just a bunch of students.  Enthusiastic students to be sure, who will pick you up at the airport in Cairo and take you to clubs in Moscow, who will discuss nationalism and trade regulations on bus rides through Kenya, who will be lifelong friends and send you happy birthday messages on facebook for no other reason than that you met through AIESEC. 

Yet they are still just students, who while they may work 40 hours a week to get you to Argentina are not - and cannot be - the ones who give you a life-changing experience.  AIESEC will give you a support network, a group of friends and colleagues, an internship, a place to stay; it will give you all the opportunities you could ask for.  But in the end, it's up to you to take advantage of those opportunities.

Our trainees have met with Prime Ministers and Ambassadors, built partnerships with CEOs, taught English to orphans, and started EuroDisney (no kidding.)  They've been on international television, taken yacht rides on rivers in India, and danced salsa on buses going 90 mph through the middle of the Turkish dessert.  Not because they're inherently people who were destined to have incredible, to-die-for experiences; it was because an opportunity arose, and when it did, they took action.  We'll offer the opportunity; you have to take it.