Shawn Jose and Guanzhou, China

Typically, one would imagine the freshmen outlook in their first semester to be just settling in the general atmosphere. Adapting to the challenging and work loaded environment presented to them, the first year of college is usually a dipping of feet in the water and taking all the sights in. Shawn Jose had a different outlook and dove right into that pool. A freshman in his second semester, debating between the path of a management and a finance major, Shawn has already accomplished much nearing the end of his first year. Becoming the president of the E-Sports Association at Baruch, Shawn has shaped his college experience into a beginning of something truly memorable for the years to come.

As the spring semester drew to a close and the sores of finals were drifting away, Shawn was definite that he wanted to make his summer worthwhile. One of his fellow classmates, a fellow member of AIESEC in the Local Committee of Baruch, had recommended the Global Exchange Program. Driven by curiosity and inspired by her passion for AIESEC, Shawn took initiative to attend one of the info sessions and he was not let down. He was only further inspired and enamored by the many different stories other AIESEC members had illustrated to him and he wanted to be a part of that.

Through AIESEC, after applying as an Exchange Participant (EP), Shawn was able to travel to Guangzhou, China for 7 weeks during his first summer of college. Exploring education and culture, Shawn taught children in English for two days a week, among different interactive activities that furthered the relationship with these individuals, along with the country. Along with teaching, Shawn worked at the senior citizen center, where he aided the community and even took on some cooking classes himself. Encompassing the country, Shawn even developed a project where he worked with disabled people once a week, establishing a strong bond with the people and cherishing the time he had.

The experience had such an effect on Shawn that he applied to join AIESEC as a global leader during the fall semester. It could only be assumed that Shawn got through and is currently a hardworking EP Manager. Only succeeding further, he currently has four EP’s, hoping to have them matched to their countries by next week!

For future EP’s, Shawn recommends wholeheartedly to start somewhere that is completely new, without any standards and with a blank slate:

“Dropping yourself in a foreign world, you don’t know anyone. You don’t know anything. You don’t know what to expect. Over time, you learn what your strengths are. You learn where you’re strong in and how to deal with the different struggles you come across. I think going abroad, working, in a totally foreign environment is something everyone should try because you learn a lot about yourself. Figure out where you’ve been before, the kind of cultures you understand, and cross those places out on the map. And go somewhere you’ve never had contact with before, like a person from there or the culture or anything from the place and just GO THERE!”

#exchange