The blog with (sappy) clichés - A depiction of my year at KY
A few years back I remember thinking that the people applying to the KY board are crazy. Who’d ever want to take a break from full-time studying to give a year from their life to KY?
As it turned out, I did. In case you have similar thoughts, I hope I’ll be able to shed some light into why I haven’t regretted a second and why you should apply too!
Best of both worlds
One thing I’ve loved about this year has been the fact that my responsibilities offer such different tasks and opportunities. In the morning I might have a meeting with the School of Business’ Education Management Team, at noon I’ll maybe attend a meet to plan KY’s orientation and then in the evening I’ll be organizing an event with my committee MC. I’ve often described my role as getting to do both the “serious adult stuff” and as well as create fun events for our community. Best of both worlds, so to speak.
While the well-known statement “every day at the KY office is different” is true for me as well, the academic affairs sector’s calendar has a regularity to it. In addition to general board work, our calendar is generally dominated by a variety of meetings with the school. I’ve been a part of several working groups during the year and in order to make students’ voices heard and with that comes the preparation for the meetings. This can either mean reading through the agenda and discussing it with other student representatives or preparing to present current topics that you as a student find important. In addition to meetings with the school we also get to meet other stakeholders like the academic affairs responsibles from other business schools.
On the other side of my responsibilities lies leading the Master's Committee. As the Chair of MC my job is to support the committee members in event organizing, arrange fun things for them to keep them motivated as well as taking care of my volunteers’ wellbeing. I’ve truly enjoyed this part of my year at KY. I’ve gotten to know many amazing people through my committee and I believe the work MC does in upkeeping student culture for master’s students is very meaningful.
A year of creating the new normal
This year at KY has revolved around returning to normal, which has also been visible in my responsibility areas. In academic affairs the most prevalent theme has been the return to campus and live teaching; focusing on student wellbeing and considering which learnings from the remote times should be implemented in live format. Outside academic affairs, the focus has also been on improving master’s orientation, and I feel like we made real progress in making it even more welcoming and inclusive. We’ve also been able to rebuild the connection between KY and Probba and got to celebrate Wappu and Mursujaiset with our fellow Kylteris from Mikkeli once again.
With next year in mind I would say that one big theme will be the role of subject clubs. As KY keeps on growing we see the rising importance of subject clubs and smaller communities they can create. Before we can however reap the fruits of them, we should develop, for instance, the bond between subject clubs and KY.
Writing this post I can’t help but start to feel a little wistful. I’m excited to see what the next board will look like and what they’ll achieve, but I am sad to leave the KY office behind. However, I’ll get through the nostalgia knowing that the learnings, belief in myself and friendships I’ve gained this year will still be there. Gosh… sappy and cliché. But true.
Maria Karesoja
Academic Affairs, Master’s Students, Subject Clubs & Probba