Success of "Yes, You Can Do It" workshop by Alumni Scholarship recipient turns into official CEU student club
On November 23, 2011, Alumni Scholarship recipient Madina Akhesthina (GENS ’12) concluded the fourth and final session of the "Yes, You Can Do It!” workshop series, held every Wednesday in November 2011. This series offered "success coaching" to students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends who were interested in finding out efficient ways to manage their time, enhance their productivity and creativity, and learn some simple, tried-and-true methods of achieving success. The "Yes, You Can Do It!" series was conducted in consultation with CEU's psych counselor, Dr. Berne Weiss, and based on the books and seminars of distinguished authors in the field of personal development, including Brian Tracy.
The event attracted over 40 students, alumni, staff and faculty and reportedly incited interest among CEU administrative units to consider organizing a derivative program targeting CEU staff.
Thanks to the positive and constructive feedback Madina has received from workshop participants, she has committed to follow the "Yes, You Can Do It!" series with a one-day "personal development" workshop for students during the winter holiday break in December 2011.
She will also continue the workshop series in the form of a CEU student club, called "Believe You Can." For the club sessions, Madina plans to expand on the original framework of the workshops by inviting guest speakers and success coaching professionals from all over the world. Club membership is open to all CEU students, alumni, staff and faculty. For more information, please write to alumni@ceu.hu.
The "Yes, You Can Do It" event series was organized with the support of CEU’s Alumni Relations and Career Services Office. For a summary of the series and feedback from participants, visit Madina's blog at:
In Madina's own words:
"I worked on reflecting on the feedback that I received from the participants, such as: "how fully can we accept responsibility for our life situations?", "how is goal-setting related to stress-relief?", "is goal-setting culturally sensitive?", "can it be dangerous to live a complaint-free life?", etc. As a result, I believe I managed to empower, on some level, both the audience and myself."