Pocket BEST

April, 2011
Board of European Students of Technology

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BEST - Board of European Students of Technology Vision

Empowering diversity People understand and respect different cultures and societies. The environment of empowered diversity supports people in applying their full potential and acting responsibly.

Mission

Developing students BEST helps students to achieve an international mindset, to reach a better understanding of cultures and societies and to develop the capacity to work in culturally diverse environments. BEST creates opportunities for personal development of students and supports them in reaching their full potential. Website: www.BEST.eu.org Twitter: twitter.com/BESTorg Facebook: facebook.com/BESTorg YouTube: youtube.com/BESTorganisation
www.BEST.eu.org

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Board of European Students of Technology

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Table of Contents
BEST ............................................. page 6 Why was this booklet made ....... page 8 I. Knowing what to say ................ page 9 Key messages ........................... page 10 Simplest questions ..................... page 12 Awkward questions .................... page 14 II. How to say it ............................ page 17 To a non-BEST student ............... page 18 To an academic contact .............. page 19 To an business contact ............... page 20 To a media contact .................... page 21 Ask yourself before speaking ...... page 22 III. How to show it ......................... page 23 Just in Case ................................... page 25 Personal notes ................................ page 27
www.BEST.eu.org

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How BEST came into existence The idea of BEST was born in May 1987 in Stockholm (Sweden) during a European conference for students of physics and mathematics. The first International Week was organized every six months in a different country during which the interaction between European students would be developed. The second International Week was held in Grenoble (France, March 1988). The first meeting held exclusively for BEST was in Berlin (Germany) in April 1989 where BEST was officially founded with the aim to promote exchanges and communication between European Students of Technology. Our position BEST is a voluntary, apolitical, non-profit, nonrepresentative international association of European students of technology. We do everything out of free will. We are politically neutral. We attempt to make no profit. We represent nobody. We are based in Europe. We are there for students of technology.
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Our activities Core activity Providing complementary education Bringing a significant added value to th education provided by the universities. Other activities Providing career support Connecting students with their future employers. Increasing educational involvement Increasing the awareness of students on issues related to engineering education and improving engineering education through the input of those students. BEST Spirit BEST Spirit is the inspiration for all our actions flexibility friendship fun improvement learning

www.BEST.eu.org

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Why was this booklet made? What is BEST? Why do you only accept technology students? Do you party all the time? These are questions that almost every BEST member hears during his/her time in BEST. Now the time has come to find short but valid answers to these questions, answers that are the same all around Europe. Through this booklet we want to strengthen our image as an organization and we want you to help us by reading and using the information in here.

Board of European Students of Technology

Chapter
Knowing
what to say

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Fundamental elements
Why we exist

Message

To empower diver (This environment people in applying tential and acting

What we want to achieve

To develop studen them achieve an i mindset, create op ties for personal g reaching their full

How we achieve our purpose

Providing complem tary education providing career s Increasing educat Flexibility Friendship Fun Improvement Learning

Our strengths and values

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Reason behind it
This is the vision that guides us in our activity, the ideal state we would like to achieve. This is the mission that supports our vision, the action we undertake to achieve our ideal state.

rsity t supports g their full poresponsibly.)

nts: help international pportunigrowth and l potential;

men-

support tional involvement

These are our core activities, through which we strive to achieve our vision and mission

This is the BEST Spirit, the inspiration for our actions and the values we follow throughout our activity

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The simplest questions are the most difficult ones Whether you are giving an interview, talking about BEST with representatives of your university, other organizations, institutions or companies, or even promoting BEST among students, the simplest questions will always be the most difficult to reply to. These are the general questions which require very specific and precise answers. Here you can find some examples of such questions which you may come across, and our tips on how to answer them: (vision) Question: What is the point of BEST? The answer to this question lies in our Vision: Empowered diversity Students understand and respect different cultures and societies. The environment of empowered diversity supports students in applying their full potential and acting responsibly. (mission) Question: What does BEST want to achieve?
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As in the previous question, the answer can be found in our Mission: Developing students BEST helps students to achieve an international mindset, to reach a better understanding of cultures and societies and to develop the capacity to work in culturally diverse environments. BEST creates opportunities for personal development of students and supports them in reaching their full potential. (Illustrated by our Core activity and Services) Question: What does BEST actually do? In answering this question you should refer to our Core Activities: Providing complementary education Providing career support Increasing educational involvement To ensure a better understanding of our activities, you should illustrate them through the events and services we offer (Courses, Engineering Competitions, Leisure events, BEST Career Support, Events on Education, etc.). Also, you should try to adapt your answer and choose the information you give according to the audience and the message you want to send.

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Answering awkward questions While dealing with any kind of external entities, you are bound to come across some questions that you would prefer to avoid, but cannot. Many times, people are not familiar with our mission and activity, or just have assumptions about BEST. When faced with such questions, try to stay cool and give a suitable reply. Also, its important to be confident in your response, so if you are uncertain of the answer, tell the person you will get back to him/her shortly. 1. Why is there no BEST in Germany? Because since 1997 we have cooperated with bonding, not that much effort has been put in creating local groups in Germany. bonding has promoted BEST, so not too much motivation came from German students to create local groups. For the near future we are aiming to change this situation by being proactive in creating local BEST groups in Germany and modifying the cooperation with bonding. 2. Your chances of going to a course are minimal, unless you know someone.
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Any student from a technical university that has a BEST group can apply. The applications are anonymous, so the selection process is fair. Selection is made by the organisers and it is not regulated, but mainly it depends on the LBG. Nevertheless, LBGs are encouraged to focus on the following criteria: geographical coverage, motivation letter and/or educational background. 3. All BEST members do is partying a lot around Europe and getting drunk (relating it to our activity and services) The core activity of BEST consists in providing services that help develop students. This is what we believe in and we put all our effort into achieving this goal. As any other students, we of course enjoy traveling, meeting new people and having fun. Its something that motivates us to work very hard and fulfill our mission. (relating it to our values) We value positive emotions and always try to make our activities enjoyable for everyone involved in them. This is one of the values we cherish, as fun is what motivates us to work hard and fulfill our mission.
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However, this is not our only value. We praise flexibility and the ability of quickly adapting to changes in our environment or obstacles that stand in our way. We value friendship, personal relationships and teamwork, as this creates synergy and helps us be more efficient. Through everything we do we seek to improve our standards and develop our activity. We value everything we learn through our experiences and strive for personal development. 4. Is BEST a sect? BEST is an organisation that offers quite a lot to its members. We are proud to know that most of them find in BEST not only a learning experience and a chance for development, but also many friends. The personal relationships built between our members expand far beyond the time and work put into our activity. This results in a large number of dedicated people who enjoy spending most of their time together both inside and outside BEST.

Board of European Students of Technology

Chapter
How
to say it

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Imagine yourself in an elevator with the person you most want to speak to, of everybody in the world! How to tell this person about BEST in the best way? A Non BEST-student Just 1 floor // 10 sec BEST is a student organisation that exists in >your university<. Maybe you know about this local event we recently had? We organised that! But we are a European NGO and the best part of it is that anybody who is a student in one of the 89 connected universities can apply and go all over Europe as a participant to the engineering courses we organise. To the top // 1 min Until the first floor you say the same. After finishing this line you continue, for 50 seconds, talking about a topic that interests your listener. For example: where is BEST located courses / competitions the people behind the organisation making friends and traveling You are stuck in the elevator // 5 min Continue where you ended after talking for 1 minute. Try to get your talk towards a
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conversation, and make it pleasant for both of you. Ask active question what else he/she wants to know, opinions, or just about applying for an event. Listen as well as talk. An Academic contact Just 1 floor // 10 sec BEST is a non-governmental, non-political student association, aimed towards developing European students of technology. We are present in more than 90 universities across Europe, with a target group of around 1 million students. We are a European NGO whose main activity is to organise courses about technology in the 89 universities connected to the network. To the top // 1 min Until the first floor you say the same. After finishing this line you continue, for 50 seconds, talking about a topic that interests your listener. For example: BUC, making universities more open to foreign students courses / competitions taking part in Thematic Networks BEST Symposium or BEST Academics & Companies (Events on Education)

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You are stuck // 5 min Continue where you ended after talking for 1 minute. Try to get your talk towards a conversation, and make it pleasant for both of you. Ask active question what else he/she wants to know, opinions, or just go more into detail about one of the topics you mentioned before. Listen as well as talk. A Business contact Just 1 floor // 10 sec BEST is a non-governmental, non-political student association, aimed towards developing European students of technology. We are present in 89 technical universities in 30 countries, with a target group of around 1 million students. Our Career Support service offers you the possibility to recruit top-engineers across Europe. To the top // 1 min Until the first floor you say the same. After finishing this line you continue, for 50 seconds, talking about a topic that is of interest to your listener. For example: BCS courses / competitions cooperation, local & international target students and the universities
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You are stuck // 5 min Continue where you ended after talking for 1 minute. Try to get your talk towards a conversation, and make it pleasant for both of you. Ask active question what else he/she wants to know, opinions, or just go more into detail about one of the topics you mentioned before. Listen as well as talk. A Media contact Just 1 floor // 10 sec BEST is a non-governmental, non-political student association, aimed towards developing European students of technology. We are present in 89 technical universities in 30 countries, with a target group of around 1 million students. We are a European NGO which main activity is to organise courses about technology in the 89 universities connected to the network. To the top // 1 min Until the first floor you say the same. After finishing this line you continue, for 50 seconds, talking about a topic that may be of interest to your listener. For example: a big upcoming external event courses / competitions & your achievements in the past
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Questions to ask yourself before speaking Put yourself in the position of your listener. What do you think is most interesting for them and how do you prevent yourself of giving the wrong impressions or to weaken your story by simply telling too much? Think back to a previous (good) conversation you had with a similar person, how come it went so well? What triggered most the interest of you listener? Have you ever heard people saying something about BEST that wasnt true? How can you give your story more nuances in order to prevent people getting the wrong impressions? Try to explain what BEST is and does, so these perceptions can change for positive ones. What are the main reasons you joined BEST yourself? Were they honest reasons? It is easiest to talk about things you are passionate about; this also reflects your story and can even be contagious!

Board of European Students of Technology

Chapter
How
to show it

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BEST provides a lot of different services towards students. It is a very active organisation driven by passionate people who put a lot of time and energy in it. This somehow should be shown to the world; we dont just say something, do we?! The main question to ask yourself, while presenting BEST to the outside world, is How does our image reflect our mission through our actions?. The image is a reflection of who you represent, no matter if this is through words, videos, or pictures. A picture is not meant to fill space, just like written words are not to design a piece of paper. You have something meaningful to tell, illustrate this by showing the significance at once; it should be clear at a glance. Travelling is seeing the whole world, not only the interiors of some bars. Job fairs are about interaction between students and companies, as in a conversation, not a presentation. What is your story about? How is the identity of BEST a part of this? You know it, you show it!

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Just In Case
Where is the office of BEST? We dont have an office but we are currenly able to function as an organisation through virtual communication and live meetings. Discussions about having headquarters have taken place, but the conslusion for now is that we dont want to invest in an office yet. BEST is registered in France and the postal address is connected to the Secretary of BEST. How do we ensure the quality of our services, especially courses and competitions? For courses the External Events Committee is responsible for the quality assurance of each course and after each season, the season coordinator goes through all the participant evaluation forms and checks that all the other criteria of the course has been met and in the end stamps the course as approved or not approved. For competitions, the EBEC team is controling the quality of EBEC and is working with the NEC/ REC coordinators in order to assure the quality of the national and regional level as well.
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The competitions are under continous development, so it is expected that in the future the quality assurance for competitions will improve. For trainings, quality assurance happens for the trainshops only. This kind of events, have a coordinator who is making sure that the requirements for a high quality training event are met. For stand-alone training sessions, it basically depends on the trainer to make sure that the quality of the training is appropiate. Tools for assuring the quality of trainings in general are in production and will be launched in the future. How do you select the member Universities of BEST? There are two deadlines a year to apply as a BEST Observer Group, namely 1st of July and 1st of December. The International Board makes the decision of who to invite as Observer Groups to our General Meeting, based on selection criteria. BEST has only in recent times started targeted growth, with the aim of covering certain countries that BEST is not present in at the moment. If there is someone interested in starting a BEST initiative at a university they can send an email to interested@best.eu.org to get in touch with our coaching team.
Board of European Students of Technology

Personal Notes

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