Be the change you wish to see

"Who are the great minds, the innovators in my field? Who is leading the change in my profession?"

    Since I have successfully finished my first semester abroad in Norway, now it is time for the second semester to emerge. Starting February 2017, I am one of the two happy students pursuing their internships at Geert Hofstede Consortium, in particular the Master in International Communication (MIC) program in Groningen. In this time span of almost two months, I have been continuously working on interesting assignments which fit perfectly with my position within the MIC: visual communication designer.

   The working environment in MIC is great and uplifting, and you know why? Because people work together to make it so. My internship supervisor is Iekje Smit and, she also happens to be the program manager of MIC. I have a great amount of respect and admiration for every person in this office who is working their ass off to accomplish what they want and even though Dania Fang is in top 2, I have some particular respect for Iekje. Every day when I come to work I wake up happy in the morning, I am excited for going to the job I wanted and I feel prepared for new assignments from her.

   Why do I admire Iekje so much?
   First, because she is a highly proactive person with clearly defined goals and achievements in mind. Iekje is one of those "great minds" who are not afraid to express publicly their ideas or suggestions within the confines of the workplace and/or in external relationships. For instance, one morning she came to me and randomly told me she just had an awesome idea for our new office walls from the new Energy Academy Europe building: make a photography wall of all the MIC staff members and students. I was immediately captivated by the idea because I love anything remotely photography-related, especially having the freedom to develop this concept, plan it and manage it myself. Until this very moment, not even one week later, I have already taken photos of 3 staff members and the next photo session is scheduled with all the MIC students for the upcoming Tuesday - 4 days from now.

   Every morning at 9 AM - sometimes even earlier, she is in the office already talking on the phone intensively with somebody or running around to fix things. I don't know where she gets the energy, but she does own it when in the office. Whenever I hear some ideas, I know she is the starting point.

   Need I mention that she is also the one person who made possible for the MIC headquarters to move to the EAE building? One main reason why I appreciate Iekje that much is that she can think for herself and act upon her words. She is a strong, independent woman with a strong character and a colorful, charismatic personality. I once read this saying "Be the change you wish to see in the world". Well, I believe I found the person to inspire me to change, to evolve, to become even more curious and to discover even more, to question more and to not hesitate to ask anything. Moreover, I have learned while listening to her how much gratitude means and how much it is valued.

   What I mean is that Iekje Smit is inspiring in her effervescence, humorous in her randomness (singing, movie quoting and poem reciting), spontaneous in her sudden great ideas, so nonetheless, she is a life breath.