Nicolas Karayannis, Class of 1996Greece
International Affairs Nicolas Karayannis got a job at the European Parliament within days of graduation. After a two year-stint there (while at the same time earning a Master’s from the Université Libre de Bruxelles), he got a job with a large lobbying firm.
After his military duty in Greece, Nicolas returned to Brussels at the end of 1999 to again work at the European Parliament, initially as an advisor to a Greek Member of European Parliament and later for a Cypriot Member, being responsible for the management of dossiers that relate to various legislative areas such as Regional Development, Foreign Affairs and Civil Liberties. In his capacity as adviser he has also had the opportunity to work closely on important issues such as refugees, PNR (passenger name records) and CIA flights in Europe. The latter has been a highly controversial subject in the Parliament (and beyond), which created a temporary committee to investigate the flights raising its profile considerably, including in the news across the world.
In 2003, he also returned to Vesalius College to co-teach a political science course with a Vesalius professor entitled 'Dilemmas of European Integration'.
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Rana Jawad, Class of 2003Lebanon
Communication Studies Rana Jawad graduated from Vesalius College in 2003, majoring in Communications and mastering the art of “controversy” through The Vernacular and every student committee.
She moved to London the day after graduation, in search of her dream job. At first, she started work at a marketing company. Not her first choice but getting started in the business can be difficult. While out looking for clients on her twelfth day on the job, the owner of her last door was a broadcast journalist from Tanzania who worked for the BBC Swahili service. They had a chat and he suggested she drop by the BBC World Service radio building for a tour. She went and stayed for a spontaneous interview for a one week internship and got it.
During that week the career advice phrase that was drilled into her head at Vesalius about “getting your foot in the door” suddenly made sense. The week extended to a whole month and since then, she has been the BBC correspondent in Libya. It has been a fantastic experience but a very difficult one as well.
In her words, Vesalius provided an appropriate environment for her to discover what she wanted out of life, by giving gave her a chance to be her best through the tools and support it provided. What she realised is that it really all comes down to what you make of your surroundings: your professors, the student body that represents half the globe, etc. |
Andrea Kick, Class of 1999Brazil
International Affairs Shortly after graduation, Andrea Kick joined KPMG’s Regional Headquarters and designed, organized and ran Management Development courses for KPMG throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. and also worked closely with key KPMG consulting clients to develop their own internal training strategies. In 2001, she settled in Brussels with her husband Andreas, married and their daughter Yasmin was born in March 2003.
In April 2004 Andrea’s small family moved to Washington DC, where Andrea joined the Organization of American States (OAS) and holds a trust position as Advisor to the Assistant Secretary General of the Organization, working one block from the White House and the World Bank. She has worked on several electoral observation missions, including the recent elections in Haiti as well as helping the negotiations to release three OAS staff kidnapped in Cité du Soleil.
Andrea has been involved in UN Security Council meetings in New York with Kofi Anan and Condoleeza Rice and has met many other dignitaries. Her international background and facility with languages (fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, English and German) help her navigate the often complicated political environment of international organizations, as does her Vesalius education!
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Alexandre Tilmant, Class of 2004Belgium
Business Alexandre Tilmant jokingly states that he not only majored in International Management, but also earned a double minor in Snack Sales and Spring Ball organisation with the Business Club given how much he helped with these two over his years at VeCo. These two activities gave him preview of what was to come in the years ahead.
Within weeks of graduation, he was studying at Cass business school in cosmopolitan London, for which the hyper-international atmosphere of Vesalius had prepared him well. At Cass, he further developed the skills he had already acquired at Vesalius. Another useful skill I learned at Vesalius was how to prepare a good international CV, earning him an offer from The Boston Consulting Group. During his first project there in the entertainment industry, all the things he had learned at Vesalius started to fall into place given that I had to be flexible and adapt myself to new situations on a daily basis, able to work on tight deadlines, work in teams, conduct research and analyze large amounts of information. After a year working sixteen hour days, as fun as it was, he decided to change careers and entered the world of finance in Paris.
He is currently working as a sell-side analyst covering the banking industry, evaluating banks for future earning prospectives as well as place recommendations such as buy, sell, or neutral on securities, a job which helped him realize my finance and accounting courses at Vesalius were.
Overall, he thinks Vesalius helped him to structure his mind, provided him with the opportunity to achieve his goals, helped him adapt to all kinds of challenges, helped him develop his soft skills, and provided the opportunity to gain friends from all over the world, who at one point shared a common experience with him. |
