This is Bas Van Heur, professor and specialist in urban studies. Do you also want a job where you can make a difference?
On how, with the right drive and mindset, you can make a difference.
As communications manager for student recruitment, Heleen van Schooneveld is constantly inhabiting two worlds: on the one hand, staying on top of all that’s going on at the university, while at the same time keeping a finger on the pulse of young people looking for a new programme of studies. This is how she keeps both sides – and herself – in balance.
With every new academic year, the VUB hopes to attract thousands of new students. Convincing them takes plenty of marketing and communication. Heleen is therefore a member of a 24-person communications team that regularly organises events, launches campaigns, creates websites and publishes attractive brochures to showcase the VUB.
“The greatest challenge is to effectively translate our sometimes rather traditional world into the fast-moving, dynamic culture of young people”, says Heleen. “How can we properly convey those things that are very important internally? And how can we detect trends among young people and translate them to the university? That takes a lot of creativity.”
For Heleen, the university is a world of its own, with its own rules that you have to learn to handle creatively. “But alongside the rules that have grown historically over the years, there’s a great deal of freedom. You have to know where to find that space, and look for what is feasible. Furthermore, it's often better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If you’re able to sense where that kind of leeway is available, you can develop your full potential here. For example, I’m very interested in making presentations for large audiences. I'm perfectly able to fit that kind of responsibility into my range of tasks, which allows me to continue to grow.”
Heleen’s view, that dynamic aspect is directly linked to the location of the VUB. “Choosing the VUB means choosing Brussels: a large, international city, where people with highly diverse backgrounds come together. Just like in my job, that tension between different worlds is both a challenge and an endless source of creativity.”
Dealing with tension naturally calls for blowing off steam. “The run-up to an event or a looming publication deadline can get pretty stressy. We’re quite a bunch, but we never miss an opportunity to have some fun, at the university and beyond.”
