It is always fun to bring good news, and that is especially the case with this Newsletter.

Finding a job can be quite a challenge, especially when there is a global pandemic that seriously impacts the job market. Needless to say, this makes the process a bit more complicated. Therefore, the BAIS Alumni Association organized a panel discussion about finding a job during the COVID-19 pandemic. The six BA International Studies alumni that served as panelists provided the attendees with plenty of advice.

One of the great strengths of International Studies Alumni is their ability find and foster connections, creating understanding between people all over the world. The online story-platform and community “Correspondents of the World”, is an interesting initiative by International Studies Alumni which embodies these qualities exactly. The platform aims to engage readers with themes like gender, migration, liberation, corona and the environment through the power of personal stories. You can get involved! We spoke to two founders of the Platform & International Studies Alumni, Joost Backer (25) and Mira Kinn (28), who were excited to tell us more.

In this article we are catching up with alumna Martina Carlucci. She graduated International Studies in 2017 and now works at the prestigious international affairs Think Tank Chatham House in London. How did she get there? And what did she wish she would have known while being a student of International Studies? We asked her to describe her journey so far.

We have created a new online tool to help you work out your future plans, and you can register for the International Studies study information course on Brightspace now!

This semester, you will notice some new faces in our tutor team. Amongst them are Sara Bolghiran (politics) and Emma Lynn Dadap-Cantal (PRINS), who have taken the opportunity to briefly introduce themselves in this article. Curious to get to know the person behind the face? Read on!

This question was asked by Simon Anholt in an interview with Times Higher Education in January 2021. Simon who? Maybe not a household name, but Anholt is something of a ‘celeb’ within the broad field that stretches from corporate PR and marketing to inter-state public diplomacy and nation branding. More a policy advisor than an academic, and always operating on that interesting borderline between profound foresight and superficial entertainment, he’s been something of an intellectual shape-shifter for more than two decades. So what does he mean here?

“Are you tired of listening to never-ending-success-stories and feel like you might be the only one with certain problems? We, humans, pay so much attention to the best of the best that we don’t know what to do when we’re part of “the rest”. While reading these sentences, did you recognize yourself and thought ‘This is so right! I have a story of a study-experience that not went to plan’. Now is your chance to help these others yourself.”

Are you working or doing a Master’s? Maybe you’re at your dream job, or in a completely different place than you expected to end up in. No matter in what phase of your life you’re in, we’d like to hear about it.

The Alumni Association is looking for a Social Media Officer to boost our online presence! Do you have extra time during the lockdown and are looking for something meaningful to do in the evenings? This is your opportunity to give back to the BAIS alumni community.