Student Consultancy Life with 180 Degrees Consulting Philippines
A lot can be said by how life sometimes pushes you into situations that you can’t help but be thankful for. My engagement with 180 Degrees Consulting came at the same time I had began my shift of degree from Management Engineer to Information Design. 180 Degrees Consulting is the world’s largest student consultancy group.
Not long after an engagement as a student consultant, I was recruited to be the Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications. It began as a simple role that meant I was responsible for maintaining communication channels and designing marketing materials. It was here where I found an intersection between my learning plan to improve my skill sets as a designer and marketer and my desire to contribute to the greater community. In a way, it was helping helpful organisations become better. It was a great way to spend my free time. Eventually, I was tasked to be the group’s Vice President for Marketing and eventual Co-President.
Leading a discussion in the University of the Philippines on helping build the social enterprise movement in the Philippines for their Alternative Classroom Learning Experience session
Once I was promoted into the executive team, my role was more external such as giving lectures on student consultancy to various student organizations, talking about being involved in causes we care about, life working in a non-profit and meeting new clients and helping match their needs to the skills of our student consultant applicants. It is perhaps, one of my regrets that I didn’t spend more time being on the ground and engaging with the different groups as my movement to the executive team was a more urgent concern and I found a calling in enabling people like me to do work that was meaningful to us.
After giving a lecture with the Yusung Charity Foundation Inc.
Coordinating and sharing best practices with the international 180DC branches worldwide was a learning experience. If anything, we’ve come to realise that many social enterprises and non-profits’ spend a lot of time fighting fires, mainly due to the fact that many organizations struggle to make ends meet as our economies struggle and funding is getting fewer and farther in between. This opens a lot of other issues like lack of manpower, unsustainable business models and teams that are stretched further than their intended capacity in terms of work hours and scope of responsibilities. Contributing in our small way by helping them streamline business processes, develop better business models, create more effective campaigns and even go so far as building experiences.
Giving a talk at the University of the Philippines Engineering Organizations Excellence Awards (EOEA) Launch
My new found love for working with the non-profit sector eventually led me to working with the World Youth Alliance in their Asia Pacific branch and in New York. It was an amazing experience working in a multicultural environment, engaging in training discussions on the human dignity and designing marketing campaigns for several different countries on a limited budget. It was here though that I realised that as much as I wanted to give my time and contribute to the non-profit sector now, it would be more useful if I spend a few years building skills that would be useful to share. Eventually, this brought me to working as a Management Trainee with Globe Telecom and founding my own start up.
For now I’ve come to peace with the reality that just because you don’t do something right away, doesn’t mean you never get to do it. While some people are ready to take the jump already to the non-profit sector full-time, I figured that I personally needed more time. I hope to one day be able to contribute what I’ve learned and to add more value the best way I know how. But for now, I’ve settled to giving back in other ways, occasionally donating to their causes, supporting their events and volunteering when there is a need.
