Ryan's visit to NTU

Indeed, the Wed that just pass was definitely an enriching day when the Ryan Director for Asia Pacific from AIESEC International dropped by LC NTU to share with us his experience and journey in AIESEC. Through the conversation with him, we somehow had a better idea what goes on in AI - some trivial,

• they had a rotation cooking team for each day
• there are 22 people in the team from 17 countries; can't beat that for diversity,
• working hours are usually 9am - 6pm or 10am - 7pm but our dear AP Director was there from 8am - 7pm since he needs to communicate with people in AP but the time difference made it difficult

Ryan's journey in AIESEC has been far from smooth sailing from day 1, he had lost in many elections as well as encountered many challenges along the way. One of the most dramatic that I could recall is when he finally became MCP for NZ (btw, he lost his first election - see, the virtue of persistence) , the NZ MC was at the brink of bankruptcy due to some financial issues. despite that, he managed to get the NZ MC to be one of the richest MC of all time during his term.

Hmm, I'm not really sure what are the strategies that he used in the MC, think its time to send him an e-mail.Another drama like situation was when he transfer over to another LC - literally by requesting to transfer to another University, look at that level of commitment - to help the LC in its management. That LC had about 25 members but it had been quite inactive, raising minimal number of TNs and SNs and was on the verge of losing its membership. Ryan ran for the LCP position.

During the election speech he mentioned about being very tough on the members if he was to get elected, which he did and first thing he did was to shook up members, issuing an ultimatum - start working for the LC or quit from it. He explained to us that it is harsh, but he wants to waste nobody's time, which I fully agree, why stay if you aren't committed to the cause. Three members remained, but they fought hard bringing the LC to one of its highest time and revived the people's interest in the Uni to join the LC.

During the ininteractive sessions, one most valuable lesson that I had learn is value of persistence; to work hard for your dream, to know that the journey towards that end will be tough but to carry on anyway. The path that Ryan had took to reach where he is now, isn't a simple flat road with nice scenery along the way, but it really is a roller-coaster journey. And will continue to be as long as he working towards his goal.

Through the journey where the ups is like the thrill of viewing the joys of your labour and the downs is like each passing day is like a lifetime - it has definitely imbue a strong character and leadership abilities in Ryan; just like a fulfillment of AIESEC's motto, the fulfillment of human potential.

To sum up, definitely, all Ryan had achieved made me felt jealous as well as inspired, he was 3 years younger than me yet he had achieved so much more. However, I believe that I too can make an impact like him by making each day an improvement over the previous - after all the road to excellence ends when you stop taking action. ;)

Are you inspired by Ryan as well? Well then, make a commitment and join us in the journey to pursue excellence ;)

By Nicholas Ong, 1st year OGX member, a Student Nominee too