Experiences, memories and feelings of those who, thanks to the Social Change School’s Master, changed their own life and the one of others, working with the NGOs
“What happens next?”
This is the question that, often, in a difficult time for the job market, both young and less young people ask themselves, when approaching the end of a prestigious Master’s path.
The future is always full of uncertainties and mysteries, but knowing that we will provide a sustainable contribution to the change is a huge motivational strength. Therefore, let’s see what will happen “next”, directly with the words of Nicoleta Susanu, former student of the Master in Euro-Project Management and Local Development, Edition 2012, who shares with us her experience and her memories of the period spent with the Social Change School.
“My name is Nicoleta Susanu Florentina and I am a euro-project manager for the Fondazione Hallgarten Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca from Città di Castello. Now, I am responsible for the partner’s research and management, as well as for the stages of preparation, implementation and redaction of European projects, including the financial area relative to the budget, and for the research and analysis of European tenders.”
In 2012, I ended the Social Change School Master in Euro-Project Management and Local Development. Also thanks to the scholarship that I had obtained, the Master allowed me to know highly motivated people and expert and skilled professionals.
During the first lessons, we were asked which was our dream. My answer was “to work for the European Commission”.
So, two years after the Master, I won a stage at the ‘European Commission DG Connect Health and Wellbeing Unit’, making part of my dream come true; there I dealt with:
- Organising the workshop ‘eHealth H2020 Inducement Prize’, with the objective of defining the rules of the tender;
- Researching sector experts and preparing formal invitations for the workshop, including the guide for the cost-reporting of the expenses incurred by the experts for reaching the workshop area;
- Supporting the responsibility of the communication team in incrementing the number of followers on Twitter and ‘likes’ on Facebook, and the responsibility of the evaluation team of the first tender H2020 – PCH26, especially in the verification of the quality of the evaluators to avoid the conflicts of interest, and of the problems faced during the realisation stage of the following documents: Draft Evaluation Summary Reports” and “Review Evaluation Summary Reports. I received the formal acknowledgment for the way I managed the problems that aroused during the evaluation stage, obtaining 5 recommendations and gaining some good friends.
At the moment, I am committed, amongst the others, with the following Erasmus projects:
- EUROPE Ensuring Unity and Respect as Outcomes for the People of Europe – Transcendental Meditation and Learning: a new approach for favouring tolerance and social inclusion.
- ASAP Anticipatory Skills for Adapting the Publishing Sector – Publishing and new technologies: paths of formation for providing new competences to the workers of the sector.
Surely, the Social Change School Master has been very important.
I remember with great admiration, the famous Andrea Stroppiana and his book “Project management in difficult contexts. A new interpretation of the Logical Framework“, that I use every time I need to prepare the logical framework of a project. An admirable thing is that, despite the years, Andrea promptly replies to my requests of help and clarifications on the Logical Framework.
Also thanks to the lectures by Stefano Principato, we learnt how to promote ourselves in the jungle of the euro-project managers, I created my scoop magazine ‘EU funding opportunities’, that counts today more than 173.400 views. Then, I created the facebook page ‘EU funding opportunities’, that it is obtaining a great success with more than 14.270 likes since November 2012, and that allowed me to obtain an informal acknowledgment from DG COMM for the social media competences.
I have to admit that some of the Master’s lessons were very useful for my professional growth and for knowing my potential. But the best memory that I have is on one of the lessons led by Christian Dama, where we were asked to give a feedback on our course mates. I would have never thought that someone would want “to become like me”. I still keep all the feedbacks I received that day…Surely, the master has been an excellent investment for me”
Do you want to work in the NGOs? Apply now for the Admission and Professional Potential Evaluation Interview, one hour of in-depth dialogue with the managers and HRM of our partner NGOs!
