Liliana Garcia

Hello!!!

I am Liliana Garcia, from G3, running as candidate for the posts President, Vice-president and secretary of the EuroAquae Alumni association; however, I am not running alone. A group of your classmates from G2 and G3, in which I am included, are interested in working together on basic activities that we have decided could bring us together as a “community”, as part of our contribution to the efforts made by G1, when they created the Association.

In the short term, we wanted to give the G4 the benefit of our experience by providing them with useful information about the different locations. Giving this guidance may have helped the G4 feel part of a community on receiving the news of their acceptance.

The EuroAquae Masters program is now three generations old, so in the medium term we need to discuss what the EAAA can and should do.

To do this we will need input from all generations, both those that are now studying and from those who have now graduated from the program and are applying their experience in the working world.

The EAAA needs your commitment to become an active community of professionals in water management. Together, play a relevant role helping to maintain the quality of our program and to promote ethics, loyalty and an appreciation of the unique diversity of cultures and experience that is one of the greatest strengths of our program

As EuroAquae is a young program with a promising future, time and hard work that is invested now in the EAAA will affect both our careers and the contribution we make the worldwide water sector.

We are the future of the water sector; therefore, we are the future of the EAAA.

Regards and waiting for your active participation!!

Liliana

Hello again!!!

I believe EAAA needs continuous development of a workforce according to the needs of the water sector. This means that we all have to be involved, to promote our skills and to achieve leadership as an association.

G1 already has done a lot, and to continue in that way,some of our collective ideas include:

Career development
*Leadership development of members
*Workshops with industry, academia, the public and development sectors
*Improvement and assessment of the mentoring program
*Promotion of members skills
*Careers Fair as part of the annual meeting.
*Career path advisers program
*Continuos feeding of the Internship and job opportunities sections

Networking
*Develop interest groups by topic. These groups could arrange conferences, prepare reference documents and reference papers and make contacts with the industry and academia
*Engagement activities, which match the interest of the vast majority.
*Devote part of the EuroAquae website to a collection of reference papers that can be posted by anyone in the EAAA Papers might cover material that is not in our curriculum but that cover novel aspects of water management.
*An Annual meeting

Communication
*Keep everyone informed about the latest developments in the water sector, specially news comming from comanies were student and alumni got an internship or job.
*Maintain and improve the newsletter as an important tool of communication.
*Develop forums around specific issues for sharing experiences and exchanging ideas.

Resources
*EuroAquae Website and EAAA forum
*EAAA booklet
*Articles from EuroAquae coordination
*General PowerPoint presentation: an overview of EAAA, members, activities and more and EuroAquae booklet
*Databases of companies, professors, research institutions, organizations, among others.

Sustainability of the EAAA
*Increase the number of active members
*Increase the number of external members
*Make sure that the EAAA is attractive for all kinds of members: students both EU and Non EU and alumni.
*Make sure that the EAAA addresses all interests: private and public sector work, research and international development.
*Raise money by holding events (conferences etc)

This ones are just ideas, but the good ones can come true just with your participation!!!

You can see Liliana's CV here.
You can watch Liliana's promo-movie here.
You can also watch common candidates' video here.

Hi,
I have two questions:

1. One of the main issues in EAAA is to involve alumni into the common
activities. After graduation, usually people are very busy with their
career and do not have time for this kind of things. What are your
suggestion (feasible) to improve the situation?

2. What do you think about PhD career after EuroAquae? Is the course
suitable for this? As we all know, the directions of this master is
to work in the industry, and this is clearly stated. So, do you think there
is something to be done to change the situation?

1. One of the main issues in EAAA is to involve alumni into the common activities. After graduation, usually people are very busy with their career and do not have time for this kind of things. What are your suggestion (feasible) to improve the situation?

I think EAAA is running into a normal process. It was just created last year and because we (G3) were in Nice during the conference, we knew about it. Some of G2 students were also there. Then G1, who created EAAA they got busy, naturally, with their (starting) professional life. Despite all that, what G1 have been doing is remarkable.

Now we are 4 generations and we realised that:
• Alumni are busy people, for obvious reasons but some are really committed to work in the EAAA.
• Students should get more involved, instead of waiting for alumni to do something
• EAAA should be an attractive organization for all students, those who want to work in Europe or in their home country, those who want to do a PhD after, Europeans and non Europeans.

My suggestions, which should be discussed in case I am elected, have more to do with strenghtening the networking and career development capacity of EAAA making it attractive to all the EuroAquae community by for example:

*Developing groups of interest by topic, location or other criteria.
*Creating more engagement activities, which match the interest of the vast majority.
*An Annual meeting of the EAAA community
*Promoting development of leadership skills of members
*Making workshops with industry, academia, the public and development sectors
*Keeping and improving the mentoring program
*Careers Fair as part of the annual meeting.
*Having a continuous feeding of the Internship and job opportunities sections

This way the number of member can be raised as well as the understanding of the benefits of being a community which with time, can have a great impact in the water sector. This, I know requires organization and hard work, but that why we are here now and that is why we need you to get involved.

2.What do you think about PhD career after EuroAquae? Is the course suitable for this? As we all know, the directions of this master is to work in the industry, and this is clearly stated. So, do you think there is something to be done to change the situation?

I think doing a PhD is a very personal choice that should be respected. The program is clearly focused on work experience but this is something we do not know (at least I did not know it) before being already in the program and after having choose EuroAquae among other possibilities.

Once here, if anyone really want to do a PhD, then a research work is the more suitable option for the forth semester. Besides, despite the program directions, master fits the European regulation in terms of ECTS (with 120, rather than 106 of other master programs on the same field). Therefore, it will not be a problem for a student who really wants to pursue a PhD to find position based on this degree (the difficulty lies more in the fact of having a diploma from 5 universities with different marking systems, but this is being solved according with the master coordination).

But EAAA can also play a relevant about this, by strengthening its relationship with the academic sector in order to provide support for members focused on a PhD and because we as a community of professionals need to be updated of the latest developments in our field.

I totally agree with Keiko.
By the way, Is there any Euroquae candidate keen to organize a group trip for Baladji wedding? (animation guaranted, baladji is the most wonderfull table dancer!!!)

Hello…

Thanks for your comments. I think the reason for the comments you referred to, has a lot to do with the way we decided to start working together.

I think EAAA is very young and that one of the challenges for the current CB was to attract people and it is still now . So during G3 semester in Newcastle, some students from G3 and G2 wanted to make people aware of what we already have (EAAA) and all we can do becoming involved, participating actively .

Everyone had a different idea about EAAA… some students believed EAAA was restricted to Alumni, some others think that the association is just a way to find a job…

So, our message (the group of candidates running together) was to make people aware that the idea is to work together (students and alumni), to continue (without strictly meaning inheritance) working from what G1 has made, make EAAA ours as of everyone.

We didn’t want to invent the wheel, but to move it, because even if EAAA is not something to inherit, its sustainability as organizations requires all generations involved.

Liliana