www.GOmentorship.ro

How can you make a good application to be admitted with scholarship into an MBA or another Master’s or Doctoral program in the US? This is the beautiful yet difficult question I am going to offer answers and advice to the prospective students, on the mentorship platform GOmentorship.ro. This online resource is bringing the mentors closer to the young people of Romania. The conferences and the mentorship activities offered on the platform are stimulating the non-formal education and the professional networking, creating stronger links between school and the professional career of young people.

Here is the preview of the conversation, which will unfold for 3 weeks:

• the application time frame
• standardized tests: TOEFL, GRE, GMAT
• recommendation letters
• letters of intent and essays
• supporting documents
• academic transcripts
• the communication with schools
• case study: Pepperdine University from Los Angeles, CA

My advice and feedback will be filtered through my practical application experience, as I was admitted to study at Georgetown University, New York University, Pepperdine University, and Monterey Institute of International Studies. I eventually chose Pepperdine, where I pursued a Master of Public Policy Degree during 2006 – 2008. Anybody can attend the conversation if registered on the www.GOmentorship.ro platform! Setting up an account is free.

European Voluntary Service Training Course, Predeal, 3-7 february 2010

Last week, I attended a training course about the opportunities offered by the European Voluntary Service (EVS). The European Commission allows organizations to host volunteers from other countries in a learning program of up to one year. The themes are numerous and community development is one of them.

The EVS offers great perspectives for SMART Development Centre, as it may engage European volunteers in thematic citizen engagement projects, using the European participation platform at www.public-policies.eu and the Romanian participation one at www.politicipublice.ro. Besides the pretty big complexity of the Program, volunteers could bring great value to our future participation endeavors. In addition, they could develop their community engagement skills, so this experience would definitely be a two-way learning process.

Any Romanian host organization receives a lump sum of eur420 per volunteer per month, to cover administrative costs as well as food and accommodation for the volunteer. This is pretty decent given that the amount is higher than the average sallary in Romania.

I will write again about our future EVS program once SMART Development Centre is accredited as a host and coordinating organization. Congrats to the organizers, the Romanian National Agency for the Youth in Action Program and the facilitators (also because I had 20 minutes to present SMART Method of Public Policy ).  More details at www.anpcdefp.ro.

The YLP 2009 Program had four modules:

1. The first one occurred in Predeal and focused on concepts of political and economic thinking that have shaped modern open societies.  A selection of writings – in English – by the key political philosophers of the past two centuries formed the basis for debate. Participants debated these ideas in the context of present-day Romania and the challenges posed by Romania’s specific social and historical legacy, and discussed the qualities required for good leadership.
2. The second module unfolded in the Danube Delta and assessed the leadership qualities and styles of the participants, their practical training in skills and technique, provided teambuilding exercises and allowed participants to present case studies.
3. The third module took place in Bucovina and consisted in a series of half-day round-table sessions where participants debated the key issues challenging Romanian society today from different perspectives. The participants gained an overview of the economic, political, environmental, social questions facing Romanian leaders today, assessed the European and international implications and identified potential areas for action.
4. A requirement of the Program is to propose a community project that every participant has to develop after graduation. The fourth module consists in presentations of the participants’ project proposals, followed by an award ceremony. My project is called “Candidez.ro (I run for office), easier to run for office, more informed voting.”

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Besides all these assets of the Program, I had the great opportunity to work with remarkable people who have expertise in the private, public and non-profit sectors. It was so rewarding to work with them during the various tasks and challenges of the YLP 2009!

Here’s a list of facts that we discussed and recommendations that we brainstormed:

• In the residential sector we use 180-250 Kwh of energy, when for the same level of well-being we could use 15-25.
• Gas resources will be exhausted in 60 years.
• Energy infrastructure is from the 1950s, we supply heat with equipment that is over dimensioned.
• It is more efficient to build new facilities than to use money to solve the environmental impact of the existing power plants.
• Demand side for energy solutions: co-generation and district heating, improve transportation from the source to the buildings, rehabilitation of buildings (they use 40% of energy consumption).
• Buildings are not rehabilitated: from 80,000 blocks in Romania, only 100 have been rehabilitated.
• There are 80% losses in energy transportation; we need a long-term plan, isolate all buildings because we all pay the losses, the opportunity cost for rehabilitation is higher than rehabilitating the district heating system; the solution stays is the distributed generation, use small energy resources for a couple block of flats.
• Romania does not have a priority to use the structural funds, hence the need to create structured dialogue that would lead to prioritization.
• Problems to access EU funding: economic crisis, companies can’t afford development projects; credit drought, banks do not finance EU-approved projects; bureaucracy procedure is still too cumbersome; logistically, there is too little personnel, low salaries, too little money.
• A priority for structural funds could be the Romanian transportation infrastructure.
• Education still faces inefficient management, corruption and nepotism, incompetence of human resources, lack of civic and social education, lack of communication between management and the civil society.
• Solutions in the field of education include: decentralization of education, curriculum modernization, better infrastructure, performance management, feedback mechanisms, external audit, supply and demand synchronization with the labor market, primary school focused on core values, skills and abilities assessment, friendly education environment, after school programs, social support projects – education vouchers, “gifted education” and differentiated education for the gifted, career services.
• Education is not flexible and does not adapt, because of the fixed structures that it needs to function.
• We don’t have a teaching method that allows the student to develop other skills besides knowledge.
• We need to reward teachers; be able to fire teachers if not competitive; competitive market place for teachers, too strong unions; teachers have to relate to kids.
• Need friendly and pleasant environment in schools; sports infrastructure; parental lessons.
• Professors and students should also keep up to date with the latest developments in their fields of study or interest.
• Regarding immigration, when settling down in another country immigrants need to have a correct attitude: respect the hosting culture, administration system and laws, not be a burden to that society; have an ethical behavior.
• We could promote better collaboration between mother rand host countries and conduct information campaigns.
• Immigration becomes an issue when numbers grow high; some countries need immigrants; country should determine its need and a quota for immigrants.
• The laws of the hosting country are sometimes too weak, immigration process needs to be controlled.
• In the case of social rejection, the higher the trust in the community, the lower the discrimination, the answer is in education policies.
• Gender inequality starts in the family; in Moldova and Romania domestic violence is tolerated.
• In the health sector, regulations are important to have a good private sector in the field; we need managers in hospitals.
• In the case of leadership in politics, we should not wait acting, active citizenship and grass roots activism are important.

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The third module is aimed at developing moderation and presentation skills. The first day was dedicated to the economic and financial crisis and here are the solutions that we came up with for Romania, as a result of our debate:

• Stop wasting money on bureaucracy (shrink the state apparatus,  lower the taxes).
• Privatize all but the core services (justice, internal security, military, education).
• Encourage competition and entrepreneurship.
• Encourage free rational thinking.
• De-regulate business relations and cancel other imposed restrictions.
• Lack of expertise in the central government is relevant.
• Need clever government intervention.
• Make it easy to do business in Romania, fire people if inefficient, no bribes, promote education.
• The one who oversees the rules should not be a player.
• Promote investment in research and development, keep the brains inside the country.
• Decentralize the public administrations.
• Reduce bureaucracy to make investments.
• Need managers in the public institutions.
• Public managers should be results-oriented.
• Start with the resources (financial, human), accountability of spending public money, give incentives to the areas that bring profit (80% of the national income is made by 2,000 companies that produce profit).
  
• Government accountability would solve a lot of the issues.
• Reform the fiscal policy.
• Improve the cost of human resources management at government level…we need public managers.
• Identify and promote the profitable sectors of the economy.
• Write projects to get EU funds