Pablo Picó Salort and Oleksandr Mysyk, new IE University’s Ambassadors for CIVICA, share their perspective on their role: "At IE University, we materialize thoughts into action"

Pablo Picó Salort, in his fifth year of Business Administration and International Relations, and Oleksandr Mysyk, in his third year of Law,  are two proactive students from IE University. Being presidents of the History and Archaeology Club, and the Public Speaking and European Union clubs, respectively, they are now working to bring IE University’s hands-on and international approach into the alliance. They encourage students to become CIVICA ambassadors and to rely on the CIVICA team based on IE University to bring their projects into reality, with the support of the Student Engagement Fund. 

What is your role as CIVICA ambassadors?

OLEKSANDR: In a nutshell, CIVICA is a global alliance of 10 the best universities in Europe. CIVICA ambassadors foster interaction and exchange within the CIVICA community. We serve as the point of contact for the peers in other universities. We are the people who represent the university on the student level, and also try to strengthen the experience across the alliance. 

We are building connections, promoting engagement, connecting with our peers in other universities and trying to create some inter-university events so that more people get to know about CIVICA, popularize it and in general make CIVICA better off. This is our mission.

PABLO: Furthermore, we support IE University’s students with their projects, mainly with the Student Engagement Fund. To see how we can help them develop their projects, we let them know about the CIVICA framework.  

The Student Engagement Fund is an initiative inside of the alliance. The idea is to create projects in collaboration with other universities. It consists of economic support, and logistics and coordination for inter-university projects that the students want to develop.  I know that, at least currently, there's one of them for the Women in Business Club at IE University. 

What do believe is your greatest strength as IE University’s students in CIVICA?  

OLEKSANDR: There are two very clear advantages. First, it is international exposure. We, as IE students, are used to an environment of a multinational community where we have people from different countries coming together and celebrating diversity.  All of it is done in a collaborative environment where everybody is respected and appreciated. I think this is something that we acquired as a skill and we try to transcribe to CIVICA. 

The second advantage is our activeness. At IE University, we have almost two hundred clubs. Me and Pablo, we are actively engaged in extracurricular activities. This is something which is inherent in education at IE University, that apart from studying your usual curriculum, you also are incentivized to take part in extracurriculars, in clubs, labs, other initiatives, something which unfortunately is sometimes lacking in other universities. IE University is a leading university simply because we are usually taking the active role in extracurricular activities and it really pays off for all of our students.

And what is the most important lesson you have learned as CIVICA ambassadors?

PABLO: By talking to the other ambassadors, I noticed how present CIVICA is in the universities that form part of the alliance and how, in one way or another, even in my own university life, it has always been present.

OLEKSANDR: CIVICA is a very big alliance. My lesson from this experience is that CIVICA doesn't have limits. You have many opportunities, such as being ambassadors, as seminars organized by CIVICA, as the European Week, which is, by the way, organized by IE University this summer… For me, the lesson was that, whenever you think that there is a limit, maybe there is a still way to do it. 

The theme you have chosen to cover while being ambassadors is communications. Could you tell us about the reasons why you made that decision and how you are implementing it?

PABLO: At the theoretical level, we all know what CIVICA is, but then, when it comes to the practical side, we realize CIVCA students are not completely aware of what it entails. 

The thing is, there's so many things that you sometimes get overwhelmed by the information. Our mission as ambassadors is to take all of this information that we have and that we, as ambassadors know (because we have prepared it for our role), and present it in a more digestible format, so that people can take it easier and find information in a faster way.  

What would like IE University’s students to know about CIVICA?

OLEKSANDR: Students should understand that CIVICA is much closer than they assume, and that it's much more practical than it seems. CIVICA, in fact, it's done for students, and partially by students.  We are working to create opportunities for students. IE University’s students should start thinking of how to engage with CIVICA because it will be very beneficial for them. 

PABLO: At IE University, we’re very hands-on. We find a way to do our projects. We present a proposal and then if it goes through, perfect. If it doesn't go through, we find a way to adapt it and present it in another way. We're used to materializing thoughts into action. IE University’s students have a lot to bring into the alliance.