by Calin Marginean
Could you tell the readers something about yourself?
Sure! I am a fifth semester, I am a cognitive science and life science major, and I am very interested in making music and organizing events. I also play various different sports including basketball, squash, and badminton; at the moment I play mostly table tennis. I have organized multiple different sporting activities in the past. I enjoy going to the Litco activities because I get to talk to very interesting people. I also used to be active in Philocom in my third or fourth semester but not so much this semester because I have been doing research at UCR, in which I have to make sure people fill in questionnaires and do saliva samples.
Why are you running for RASA secretary?
The reason I personally want to run for secretary is because as an international, you come to the Netherlands and you do not necessarily feel particularly welcomed since you a foreigner in a foreign land. In my case, UCR really, genuinely made me feel at home in a country where I had never been to before and so I want to extend this to all the students who come here
So, you want to both repay the kindness and repeat it?
Yeah, exactly.
What is the practical side of what you would do if you were to become Secretary?
I would like to improve the coordination between the committees: I think that if the committees talk between each other then the way they are set up will be ameliorated rather than having some committees that may not be as active as others and so they would be able to pool ideas of what works and what does not. I also think that the communication between RASA and the students could better – I will look into ways of doing this, predominantly electronically because I believe that RASA should be as sustainable as possible.
I would also like to create a page for jobs specifically for during UCR: some people who come to UCR do not necessarily have the means and the ease to pay for their fees, especially people outside the EU, and to do this this I think it is necessary to provide them with lots of opportunities to have summer jobs or weekend jobs throughout the semester. This has been done to some extent by this years RASA board, however, I think it could be done better still.
Which qualities would make you suitable for the position of RASA secretary?
I have got lots of experience in working in boards, I was in HAC in my first year and at the moment I am the Cultureweek secretary. This means that I have lots of talks with both external and internal parties. I have created three student initiatives like the Vocaholics (https://www.facebook.com/groups/453125954743126/ ) Interest in Cognitive Science? (https://www.facebook.com/groups/cognicoop/?fref=ts ), and the Surprise Orchestra which I started together with Stijn and Mimi. I think that what could be a disadvantage would be the fact that I am not Dutch. Despite this, I have been speaking Dutch for the past three years, my girlfriend is Dutch and we speak Dutch regularly. Also being a native English speaker I can possibly improve some of the language mistakes in the RASA archives and the communication RASA has with students.
Calin Marginean, Class of 2017, is a Social Science Major from Romania.
