PRINS: a stepping stone to the real world
International Studies' third-year consultancy course PRINS is a challenge for every new group of graduating students and this year the course was taught entirely remote. But, as in previous years, the rewards were substantial, with students acquiring valuable skills, while also having a very good time. Students, research coaches and participating organisations reflect on this year’s PRINS edition.
Bhumika Gupta, 20, India. Bhumika chose the Middle East as her region and Arabic as her language. In PRINS she was subgroup leader in the project for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs about three Sustainable Development Goals and pandemic recovery.
"My team has just given their final presentation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it went really well. We got good feedback and I feel that the solutions we developed were definitely appreciated. After four months of hard work, that was a great feeling. I loved PRINS, it was such an interesting and valuable experience. It was the first time we got to apply our knowledge and skills in real life.
Of course, everything was done online. After my second year, I had returned home to India, and because of the Covid situation I have not travelled back to the Netherlands. Most people in our team stayed in the Netherlands, but the distance was not a hinderance for me. I feel like I met so many people online and in my subgroup there was plenty of opportunity for personal contact.
I did not only learn a lot in terms of consultancy skills, but also on a personal level. When we started PRINS, I was asked to be a subgroup leader. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fulfil that role, but I decided to take the challenge. And it worked out well, during the project I really increased my leadership skills. I am very pleased with that.
My advice to future PRINS students? You can really challenge yourself by fulfilling roles you didn’t think you could fulfil. Give this important project the time and dedication it deserves and above all, enjoy it!"
Eftychia Mylona teaches Economics and History Middle East, Cultural Studies. Involved in PRINS since 2018. This year she was a coach to one student team working for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and two student teams exploring a case put forward by the UN.
“My students are very resilient, that is something that I am proud of. There were many challenges: the online work during this Covid pandemic, the lack of personal contact, the fact that some of the PRINS team members were in their home countries, while others stayed in the Netherlands. But they made it. They didn’t give up, they came up with exciting solutions to problems put forward by large professional organisations.
Of course, this year was different from previous PRINS editions because of Covid. But the students were prepared. Last year, in the second semester all lectures and tutorials were already held online, which gave them some previous experience of working in a digital environment. So that went reasonably well. But I think what they really missed, was coming together and getting to know each other. The lack of the personal element was difficult, for me as a coach as well. It was harder for me to assess how everyone was doing, whether anyone was struggling. For that kind of information, I relied on the subgroup leaders, who were overseeing small subgroups within the larger team.
PRINS certainly is a very complex and demanding course. The students have to cooperate in a big group of about 15 people, some of whom they don’t really know. They have to deal with team members from different backgrounds, developing their team skills. For the students this is the first time they need to apply their multidisciplinary background and find out how to use it outside of academia. That is an extremely valuable experience, it will help them in their further career.”
Eftychia Mylona and Bhumika Gupta were both involved in the project put forward by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The COVID pandemic has set the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (SDGs) seriously off track. The Ministry asked the student teams to analyse methods to reverse the impact of COVID 19 on three of the SDGs, including SDG3 on health and well-being.
Athanasios Stathopoulos, lecturer International relations and coordinator for the politics courses within the programme. Involved in PRINS since 2016, this year as coach to several student teams working for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).
“This year’s edition of PRINS was slightly different from last year, when part of the course was organised online because of the Covid pandemic. This year, Covid was still here, and teams had to complete their report while working 100% remotely. Therefore, we had made sure that each team was divided into several smaller groups, each with its own subgroup leader. Another thing was, that we asked each of the students to give peer-feedback to students in other subgroups in their team. This resulted in better communication and more cohesion in the teams’ final report.
All in all, PRINS is often seen by students as a challenge, but it is a fruitful one, and one that leads to developing new and useful skills. I regularly tell them: I would have liked to have a course like PRINS when I still was a student. PRINS is a stepping stone to the real world.
In PRINS, the students manage to handle something that is quite difficult: finding answers to complex questions. In order for them to do that, they have to bring together knowledge from various disciplines, look into real-world cases, and synthesise information. At the same time, they also have to take into account both the strengths and possible limitations of the client organisation, as well as local and international dynamics. I am really proud of my students!”
Athanasios Stathopoulos worked with some of his teams on the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) project. This organisation asked the students to analyse difficulties surrounding HIV services for people on drugs and people in prisons and to come up with ways to improve the accessibility of those services.
“PRINS brought us an outside view”
Benjamin Fischer, intern at UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) HIV/AIDS Section. During PRINS, 6 student teams worked on the case put forward by the organisation.
“We really appreciated how much work the students put into our case. The research reports that came out of the course were valued highly by our team at the UN. Their reports were at a very professional level, I was impressed with that.
In many academic studies, there is no room for looking into how the results of your research can be applied in the real world, that practical element is missing. Speaking as a former student myself, I’m sure that it would be really appreciated if more organisations would have practice-based courses like PRINS. It is an incredible opportunity for students to have this insight into how an international organisation or company works.
From the perspective of the UN, participating in PRINS is a good way to have the view of young minds on issues that we are working with. I feel it is always important to have a view from a new perspective in order to be able to continue to find innovative solutions. And PRINS did bring us this outside view. In that respect, I would recommend to any organisation or company to take part in PRINS.
To me it was impressive how much time the students spent on investigating how the organisation works, and on what can be done, or what is outside of the mandate. And this is not easy, with a complex organisation such as the UN. At the same time, it is a fascinating organisation and I would assume that for some students, working this case in PRINS could lead to actually applying for an internship with the UN. And of course, I also hope that the students have become more interested in the field of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support among key populations, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who use drugs, people in prisons and transgender individuals, and their sexual partners, which is such an important topic.”
CHC Portal, 20, France. Region: Africa, language: Portuguese. During PRINS, CHC worked as a completer within the Amnesty International project.
“Our team consisted of 14 students, and was broken up into 3 smaller subgroups. The fact that this was such a big project we were working on, with so many people involved, was one of PRINS’ biggest strengths and at the same time, it also was its biggest weakness. For one thing, it was a big advantage that we had so many different brains at work, that so many different perspectives and specialisations were at hand. For instance, I specialised in gender and sexuality in a minor in Leiden. That particular knowledge I could bring to one of our case studies in the Amnesty project, about the LGBTQ+ movement in Poland.
Yet at the same time, during the course we had to deliver several assignments, and because we had three subgroups, all three of them with five members, completing these assignments could be a slow and complex process. In our subgroup I had the role of completer, which is similar to an editor. Every week the completers of all subgroups had to delve into the individual contributions and piece them together like a puzzle, aggregating and harmonising the texts. Yet for me, it was also a good experience. I usually very much like to work alone, but here I was part of a large group, which I discovered to be enjoyable as well.
Also, it was enriching to get so much peer feedback. We frequently had discussions in our team, people would disagree with what others had done, which led to changes or a reshuffle of certain elements of our texts. For me, this was a real learning process. I would certainly like to repeat the experience in my professional life eventually, working as a senior consultant.”
CHC Portal was part of a team working on a project presented by Amnesty International. Amnesty asked students to reflect on ways to bring human rights back in the current polarised public and political debates and build activism around fact-based narratives.
Juan Manuel Crespo, consultant and coordinator of the Bioregional Planning Group of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative. During PRINS, 5 student teams worked on the case put forward by the organisation.
"One of our technical experts, who is based in the Netherlands, connected us to the people of the International Studies programme. We immediately saw the possibilities of involving PRINS students into our projects. And it worked out very well! It was a fantastic opportunity to have fresh eyes looking at the Initiative. I personally feel it is very important to have the new generation on board in an organisation like this. The student teams brought both a young perspective and a global background to the case study.
In the end, the students presented very powerful recommendations around some issues that we were already aware of, but that we now know should be explored further. We will be using the PRINS contribution for sure during the initiative’s current important transition from the phase of planning to a new phase of advocacy.
The teams’ proposals were high quality, they took into account such issues as the political situation and the indigenous context. One team came up with a very surprising framework for their recommendations. They wrote their entire report from the perspective of the indigenous peoples, and used their concept of sumak kawsay, ` good living’ as a key element in their proposal. I was impressed, because this is not an easy thing to do from a foreign perspective. On the basis of this positive experience, I would certainly recommend other organisations to participate in PRINS.
PRINS is a good way to allow the students to go beyond the academic bubble. In my view, that is exactly what academia needs to be about: contributing knowledge to society and to real problems faced by real people."
Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, based in Peru and Ecuador, seeks to forge a new, post-carbon model for the Upper Amazon bioregion, ending their dependence of the extractive industries and protecting indigenous peoples’ territories. The Initiative asked PRINS teams, among others, to explore the most effective strategies to position the bioregion in international contexts, attract funding and build partnerships.