A week in the life of Estée van der Vlies

For the search for the new board of Kraket, the Electoral Committee, in collaboration with the SECTOR Committee, proposed to highlight the week of all board members of Kraket, and today is my turn. Firstly, I will introduce myself to you, I am Estée van der Vlies, I am 21 years old and this year I am the Internal and External Affairs Officer of Kraket. Besides my board year, I am also in my last year of the bachelor EOR and finishing up my thesis. To combine the two functions is very interesting. With both functions, you are a lot in contact with people, but in a very different kind of way. As Internal Affairs Officer, you have a lot of contact with your members, so in a more informal way. And you also supervise most of the committees, to see if everything is going to plan. As External Affairs Officer you are also in a lot of contact with people, but in a much more formal way. You are trying to keep good contact with companies and search for other potential sponsors for Kraket. The goal is to give your members enough choice to find their perfect job.

These two functions combined can lead to busy weeks. Let me highlight one week for you.

Monday
It is the first day of period 5 and we begin this day with a board meeting. Every week we have a board meeting on Monday at 10:00. We try to do this physically in the Kraketkamer, but sometimes this is not possible. However, this was a day where everyone was ‘fris en fruitig’ on Monday morning in the Kraketkamer. This is where we recap what we should have done last week and what our actions are for this week, regarding activities, function based actions, etc. At 12:00 the board meeting was done and then we had a little break, to give ourselves some energy for the rest of the day. Then I have a meeting with the Caseday Committee. I am the supervisor of this committee, so I just check whether they are doing their job right. In the afternoon Lia and I had a business meeting. We have already had a few this year, of course. However, this was the first business meeting we had at their office, so that was very exciting. It was a new company, so we gave them an introduction to what Kraket is and what we do. At the end of the day we were back at the Kraketkamer, where I sent some emails to some companies and to VSAE for our first year activity. After a hard day of work, I’d like to clear my head. For me to do this, I go running. And then the first day of the week is already over.

Tuesday
I start this day with some administrative tasks. I will answer some of my emails of companies and then I will prepare an email for the registrations of new committees. At the end of the week the registrations will open for Study Trip, “Wie is de mol?” Weekend and Lustrum Committee. I will prepare the email a few days before, so at the end of the week it is totally ready to be sent to our members. Now I have some time left before a meeting with the faculty. So for a few hours I will work on my thesis. Then, at 15:00 I have a meeting with the faculty and some board members of other study associations about the introduction week. Together, with Wouter Smidt, who is a member of the Introduction Committee, I am going to this meeting. Here we got more information on the introduction week of the upcoming year. We will write a summary about this to show this to the rest of the committee, so they can organize the best introduction week yet. At 16:00 we have an activity of the Sport & Games Committee, namely: Padel. Together with Tristan I will play some matches against other Kraket teams. Because it was such nice weather, afterwards I went to the Vondelpark with some friends to enjoy the lovely weather. 

Wednesday
Today we have a formal event: Diversity and Development day. With lots of months of preparation, the day can finally be organised. The committee is gathering at around 09:00 at the VU, so I will be there to open the Kraketkamer for them. When everyone of the committee is gathered, we go through the schedule and then the day can begin. It is a busy scheduled day with lots of fun speakers, companies and workshops. The day begins with an opening speaker, Jan Peter Balkenende. After this, we go to a workshop. We had two choices: Diversity Talks and The Elevator Pitch of Career Services. I went to Diversity Talks, which was very interesting. Next, there was a speaker of EY, who talked about how working at EY is and what their personal experiences of EY were. Then, we had a lunch break to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. Thereupon, we had a new speaker of Actuarieel instituut, where they also talked about their personal experiences of the company. Then, we had the speeddates, where we could talk with multiple companies to get to know them.  When the day was over, we celebrated with the committee that the day went well. 

Thursday
Because I don’t have any meetings early in the morning, I begin the day with a run to start off the day fresh. After that I am going to the VU and get some coffee, to get a little more energy. At 10:30 I have my first business meeting. Together with Lia I will have a Zoom meeting with a new company. After this meetiing, I have a Kraket Weekend (KW) meeting with the board at 11:00. Here we discuss all the possibilities to do with KW. KW is one of the most fun weekends of Kraket, where we go away for a whole weekend to a secret location with a lot of Kraketters. So there goes a lot of time in brainstorming for this fun weekend. After this meeting, I have an Almanac committee meeting at 14:00. I am not the supervisor of this committee, but a member for this and next year. After this meeting I have a meeting with the Wintersport Committee at 16:00, where we discuss where we will go on the next ski trip.. Then after this, I quickly grab some dinner because at 18:30 we have an UVO-meeting. This is a meeting with all the boards of the VU to get to know each other a little better. After this meeting we even went to chill with the board of VIB. It is very nice to get to know people from other boards. Especially in these times, when you can help each other.

Friday
It is already the last day of the week, so I am checking my tasklist to see if there are any tasks left I need to do for the weekend. I see that next week, we have an Inhouseday of Optiver, so I need to email our students who have registered for the inhouse day with all the information. Then, I also send the email for the opening of the registrations for the new committees and make our students enthusiastic to sign up for the committees. Together with Lia, we also needed to prepare the LOES external meeting. As an External Affairs Officer, you have a meeting with the other External Affairs Officers of FAECTOR, Vectum, Vesting and Asset, a few times in a year and this time we needed to prepare this meeting. After this I had a meeting with the Introduction Committee, where Wouter and I will tell them what has been discussed in the faculty meeting and then brainstorm about what we can do in the upcoming introduction week. Then, I have a meeting with the Happy Hour Committee, to discuss what the next activity for the EGW is going to be. I try to not schedule a lot on my Fridays, so I have some time to contact new companies, to update the companies list and to work on my thesis in the afternoon.

Overall, I have diverse activities during the week which makes my functions very interesting.
I hope you have a good impression of what an average week in my life looks like! If you have any questions, you can always contact me!