Candidate interview
Meet the candidate chair Łukasz Wesołowski;
Why do you want to become a board member for Ockham next year?
I really found that I feel at home at Ockham and I love the community. I love the people. I also love what we get to do as [an] association, and I want to be a part of it. I want to give back to this place that has accepted me [and I can do that] by becoming a board member.
How do you feel now that you’ve actually become a candidate board? Is it tougher than you thought?
I feel a little overwhelmed. I think it’s a lot to take in, especially as someone who’s not really familiar with a lot of the inner works of Dutch culture – especially Dutch student association culture – all of that. It feels like a lot to learn, a lot to experience. I’m not really worried, but I do think that it’s going to be very interesting for the next few weeks, maybe months.
What would you like to achieve in the upcoming board year, if you already know?
I want to get more active members. I want to get as many active members for the Ockham committees, the association, [and] the events as we can. We want that. We need that. We know that you are all out there. Whatever we do as Ockham is greater than the sum of all its parts, but we need as many of those [parts] as possible.
What’s your favourite Ockham activity so far?
I need to think about this for a second, because I feel like I found something really great in every single one that I’ve participated in. One activity [that] I enjoyed a lot was Create Tomorrow. Thanks to Ockham, I got the chance to participate in one of the biggest [student] think tank events with fellow honour students. The big part that made it really, really fun was not just getting to do it, but getting to do it with people that I know and care about. I think I got a chance to do something I wouldn’t have gotten to do otherwise. It was an opportunity to think and to see how my friends behave in an unfamiliar context. To [really] meet them, not just in honours lectures [or] in a completely casual setting. It gave me an idea of who they are and how they work.
To what extent do you think your role as chairman fits you?
I think it fits me the best out of all the roles I could have taken on the board of the association. I enjoy this sort of different kind of responsibility [from] all the other board roles… this overarching vision of what’s going on in the association. I feel like I will be making a lot of use of my other board members, because they will all be dedicated to a much more specific task.
But we will all be board members first. Our position second. In the end, as chairman, I will get a chance to have an overview and a bigger picture.
Lastly, if you had an unlimited budget, what activities would you organise?
I think I would [bring as many] people or speakers in. There is a lot of knowledge, a lot of worthwhile time investment, in just getting to listen to interesting people, such as specialists. I think [the Ockham committee] SympCie resonates with me very much, as I like bringing value from outside of the UT – places that we don’t normally have access to – into our lectures, seminars, and workshops. There is still so much knowledge out there that individuals and the association as a whole can gain from.
It kind of sounds like you wanna do a symposium.
Yes. Let’s do one every week. Let’s give the honour students something that other associations don’t give them, and let that something be smart, inspiring people that have something [worthwhile] to listen to.
