Hi everyone, my name is Renate, and I’m the former chair of the TeMa Conference. I’m 25 years old and I’ve done a bachelors in international business and management at the Hanze, but urged for some more challenge, and of course, who wants to end their studies after (only) 4 years?? So, after enrolling for the (mostly online) pre-master, I wanted to meet some fellow studens. My first event was the introduction Running Dinner. I had a lot of fun and was impressed by the organization. The TeMa members were very kind and showed interest. Of course the suggestion came: “Wouldn’t you like to do a committee?”. Although I was interested, I had to decline. First the pre-master, especially mathematics, and then maybe a committee. Another year, another lockdown and mathematics was behind me. Now I didn’t have any excuses left, so I applied for the February committees and became the new chair of the TeMa Conference 2021!

Let me start off with why this committee has so much going for itself. It’s the biggest TeMa event of the year, on the day itself everyone is either looking for their future employer, employee or establishing a network. It’s a serious committee, meaning you will actually get the chance to develop yourself. My personal favorite, you get to know the companies, your fellow committee members, the students and the board very well. 

But, don’t be intimidated, when I started this committee I can attest that there might have been some start-up problems, I mean “I’m sorry what’s an agenda again?” was one of my first sentences in the first serious meeting. As the chair you have to set the tone and pace of the committee. I found it important to first get to know each other a bit, we had some fun nights and quickly after we got up to pace. I made the agenda’s every week, which calls for planning what needs to be done in the foreseeable future. Choices had to be made regarding the type of companies we wanted at the event, the place where we wanted to organize it and for example the font on the flyers. In the beginning, getting an overview of what needs to be done consumes quite a bit of time. 10 hours a week quickly fall to 5 when everything is up to speed. Keeping check on the committee members, the quality of the work and the fulfillment of tasks continues to consume time. Being the chair, your committee members turn to you for advice and with the problems they encounter. Once the conference approaches, you will know every side to your committee members, which is good because the workload will rise since so many small tasks will have to be done.

In hindsight, I’m grateful that I was allowed to be part of the organization of this event. I’ve improved my leadership skills by seeing how certain management styles affect different people and as silly as it may sound, by making mistakes in an environment where that’s okay. Now, I won’t be making them at my future employer. Being part of making this event happen, and seeing what it takes behind the scenes opened my eyes to the importance of planning every detail that makes the event shine a bit brighter. So, if anyone would ask me if you should apply for the Conference Committee of 2022, I’d say, “why the hell isn’t your motivation letter written yet??