ADVICE Students logo designed by Andra Oprișan

It’s not easy to even start volunteering… but I was lucky.

So lucky in fact, that the girls at ADVICE Students dragged me to their NGO stand at the second floor in the “Virgil Madgearu” building just because I told them I didn’t like their website. This happened in the autumn of 2006, in my first year of college; so I got in, survived the training and changed the website. Sometimes more than once every year.

The main things I did there were restricted to online activity: projects’ websites, flickr account, domains management, stuff like that. But I did it with passion.

After I quit college, three summers later, there was something else I needed to do to end my four years cycle*. So I waited another year and decided to leave the organization, for evolution and moving on ‘s sake. Hell, four years is a really long time for this kind of NGO.

I’m an alumni now, not a great one, but I survive. There are many great things that a NGO has to offer, and they multiply if you’re in a college environment.

Greatest of all, are the people you work with. Sure you meet people at a new job, at a conference, college mates or others, but with the ones in an organization you get to do many great things, one of them being able to fail without major consequences.

Of course you’ll hurt some feelings, disturb some pride, but you’ll learn together. You’ll most likely develop your skills, gain new ones, learn cool, interesting stuff, and the best of all you’ll learn that it’s ok to fail. Though, before that, you should know that failing is good, and you should embrace it with kindness and understanding.

The second best thing would be the network you get in. Unfortunately, advertising isn’t my thing, but man these guys can skyrocket you to an agency! Each and every generation (and I met four) had at least two dude(tte)s that got a job in the industry. And when I say at least two, I mean 10+.

Then there are the youth exchanges. My first time out of this country was with friends from ADVICE; we went to Turkey, had two great days in Istambul by ourselves, and spent more than a week in Kırşehir, where the programme was held. A couple of years later, a last gift from the guys (actually mostly girls) was a trip to Sofia, which was another great experience, hope I’ll post something about it soon.

For me, the most amazing thing I got was this.

So there are no words for my gratitude towards my friends from ADVICE Students. Especially for the generation I grew with…

Thank you girls, and guys!