Interview Annika

So my name is Annika Knoef, I'm the commissioner of the Symposium Committee so we organized the Flow symposium of this year. Besides that, we also organized one of the events during Night University. 

The process was similar to organizing the symposium, with keeping contact with speakers and hoping they show up after you don't receive a reply. It went really well though! Everyone showed up, and we had a really insightful discussion with the panel members and the audience. 

- Yeah I think it was very interesting to see their perspectives on having responsibilities next to your study, because that doesn't necessarily have to be a full-time sports position or something. I think the same advice can count for students struggling with side jobs and amateur sports. 

I also really liked that we invited Ferenc Jongejan who did a sports scholarship in the United States. He obviously already graduated a long time ago but, because he's working as a dual career officer now, I feel like he gave some pretty nice advice. So I was also very happy that we were able to have him in our program. 

I started as an active member at Flow this year. I was new to university life as I studied at a University of Applied Science. They have some associations, but people aren't too active in them. That's a massive contrast with Tilburg University! Since I didn't know anyone yet, I decided to join Flow and become an active member. During the interview, I was asked whether I would be interested in being a commissioner for the committee. I was open to it, so I said yes, but I honestly did not know what it fully entailed. As the semester started, I learned more about my role, and how General Board meetings work. It was a very interesting learning experience!

I went in very blindly! We had a commissioner training, and it was more professionally organized than I expected. However, then I went to the first General Board meeting, and I was immediately put at ease. I thought it was really nice and interesting for me to kind of learn what the other committees are doing. Since my committee only has one big event, which is in March, there was a peak of stress, but now it is much calmer. It was really fun to be able to contribute to Night University as well! We hosted a session on students who did or are doing a dual-career, like radio DJ or professional sports. It felt a little bit like a reunion of the committee!

We collaborated with Studium Generale on the symposium. For us, that meant that we didn’t have to arrange the room and a lot of logistics, because Studium Generale did that for us. However, we did have to decide the topic and arrange the speakers. That's the most important: what do you actually want to talk about? We discussed with Hannah van den Bosch from Studium Generale what topics had already been discussed in Studium Generale lectures before, and she gave us feedback on our ideas to make them more unique. I think this step of actually choosing the topic took the longest! Then we had to find speakers to share some insights and talk during the event. It took a little longer than hoped, but in the end we found some speakers that we thought were fitting, and they all said yes! One of the speakers we invited wasn't known by any of us, but was recommended to us by the university, and he was an amazing fit for the event, which we are very grateful for. We also managed to invite the editor-in-chief of De Speld! I really liked that you can meet a lot of people you otherwise might have never come into contact with! 

- So you were also able to benefit a bit from it as a networking experience? 

Yes! Also because I was new to Tilburg University and new to Flow. Before I signed up for the committee, I had never been to a symposium before. I really went in blindly! So in September I attended a random symposium to see what it's all about. What is supposed to happen? I felt lucky that our committee had a lot of people that have already been with Flow for a few years. Though I was the commissioner, it was really their knowledge that helped guide the committee as well! I also think it's nice to have some first year members as commissioners because they’re people that are not really embedded into the Flow culture yet. They might come up with different insights, steer the committee into a new direction! 

I think it definitely helped my studies. Obviously, for my social life it helps because I just moved to Tilburg and attended TOP week, during which I found out about Flow. As a commissioner you are also immediately connecting with other commissioners and active members during the first few months. So I started recognizing a lot of people on campus, which made everything feel much more homely! Study-wise, it's nice that you kind of get to know how Studium Generale works. For example, I didn't realize how much you can do on campus every day. There's an event every day if you want to go! In general, I just learned a lot about how the university works very quickly, which has helped me navigate my study more easily as well.

Of course the topic is different every year. Additionally, this year a difference as well is that we’ve got to do a Night University talk. I think a lot of people from my committee, who also experienced last year's symposium, really like the freedom that we had in picking the topic. Last year, the committee organized the National Day of Communication which meant that the topic was more rigid. I was not there myself last year, of course, but I heard from others that this freedom was very nice to have.

It was a great experience! In our committee, there are no completely new students or students who are new to Tilburg University, except for me. Everyone is already doing their Master’s or are further on in their Bachelor’s. So that was quite nice for me because they already knew how things worked at the university, which made my life a lot easier. Like I said earlier, their experience in Flow was also great to have. With new members in our committee, we would have set up a great event as well, of course, but we would have needed a lot more help from the Daily Board and Studium Generale.

My first thought is The Office. I think it is in the way that we interact with each other. The entire experience has felt exactly like that. 

- Something tells me that maybe Flow has a bit of an Office vibe. 

Honestly, I also thought the same during Study Trip as well!

If there's no budget, you could get really good speakers. As I said, we got the founder from De Speld. Though I would like to invite more famous speakers, I also really liked what Chris and Frederick contributed. Also because this was their first symposium in this setting, and they had fascinating things to present! So, I would aim for a bit of a mix between big names and professors from the university. In terms of location, I think that even though the Black Box is very cozy, I would want to bring the symposium to the big auditorium in Marga Klompé! It is very grand; fitting for an event like this! The goal will always be to organize it for students, so it only makes sense to keep it accessible and on campus.