The document summarizes 5 seminars attended by Daniel Verhulst: 1. A visit to the European Council in Brussels which provided information on its role and function. 2. A seminar on working and living abroad which outlined 5 core competencies: language skills, an outside perspective, dealing with cultural differences, emotional stability, and looking past stereotypes. 3. An Ekolecture by Guy Verhofstadt who criticized the current state of the EU and argued more integration is needed to avoid nationalism. 4. A seminar on applying for jobs abroad that discussed individual career paths, internships, and tailoring skills in CVs for each role. 5. A semin

1. SEMINAR SLIDE CAST
BY DANIËL VERHULST

2. MY 5 SEMINARS
• EkoLecture

3. VISIT TO THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
175 RUE DE LA LOI, BRUSSELS | 06/10/2015 @ 14:00

4. • Institution of European Union
• Established in 1975 as informal summit
• President of the European Council : Donald Tusk
• No formal legislative power, only strategic body

5.  Decisions made mostly during consensus
 Sets the EU’s political direction and priorities
 Does not negotiate or adopt EU laws
 Meet 4 times/year
 Made up of the heads of state/government from each EU country

6. Only asked one question during (actually after) this seminar which was:
How it worked out for the translators, since there were more country seats than
there were translation booths.
The reply I got to this is, that countries can choose to pay (on a yearly basis) for
translators, by doing so they can choose whenever they want to use a translator at
the meeting. Since not all countries pay for this, there usually are booths left over.

7. I was satisfied with the seminar, as it had a very unique experience to it. Although I was
also a little disappointed in the speaker, as the topics she discussed were fairly
uninteresting. The most interesting about this seminar came afterwards when we were
allowed to ask questions and when we discussed further when it had actually ended.
Which was mostly with the tour guide and not the actual speaker. So I was content to
have gotten to know how these meetings are held and handled.

8. WORKING AND LIVING ABROAD
AULA 4 KANTIENBERG | 01/12/2015 @ 18:15 BY DIRK BUYENS

9. “Reality is somewhere in between, what you know might not be what it is.
As different palces know it in a different way.”

10. TIMES ARE CHANGING
• The world is “flat” vs the world will never be flat
• From “add on” to “Olympic minimum”
• It used to be “Where did you go to” – Now they’ll ask “Why did u stay local?”
• “Being out there” is one thing, “having learned something” is however the question.
• Export product: The Belgian CEO
• Belgian news covers more than just Belgian news while USA covers only the USA.

11. 5 CORE COMPETENCIES FOR GOING ABROAD
1. Language skills (good enough beats perfect)
Knowing their language, even if only a little – shows interest in the country.
2. The oustide-in-view (View from the outside perspective)
3. The Multi-ethnocentric reflex
When interacting with people you can relate to people in similarities.
4. The homelessness skill (have an emotional stability so you can cope with this)
Coming back =/= Coming home
5. The seeing through the cultural façade; Look through the stereotypes!

12. As for my view of this seminar once it finished, I was overall happy, he gave me new insight on what
some of the core competencies are for moving abroad. I think this is pretty crucial as you do not
want to go abroad unprepared so having him sum up what’s most important was a big plus. He gave
a lot of points that summarize what you’d all have to be prepared for, but in my opinion those
competencies are the most crucial ones that I’ll remember going forward.
Didn’t prepare any questions for the seminar and thus I also ended up not asking any during or after
the seminar.
The only preparation I did for this seminar was going over the slides of Intercultural Communication,
as we saw a lot about working and living abroad back then. So I was looking forward what else this
speaker had to tell us.

13. EKOLECTURE
CHARLES DEBERIOTSTRAAT 24, LEUVEN | 08/12/2015 @ 20:15 BY GUY VERHOFSTADT

14. “The more crises we have in Europe, the more we come to a breaking point. We have to choose: Do we
follow the nationalist parties or do we step in to the shoes that our European founders had envisioned?”
• Still a weak confederation of nation States
• Decision-making power still lies in the hands of several States
• Cause to always react too late or wrong
E.g. The fugitive crisis or the Eurocrisis
• Wants MORE Europe
• Return to the founding fathers of Europe

15. REASON WHY I CHOSE THIS SEMINAR
This was the seminar I chose myself and the reason for this is first of all is just that Guy Verhofstadt is a
man that has played a big role in the European Union and the Belgian government. So to hear his vision on
the current state of Europe was something I really wanted to find out as I am doubting to stay in Europe or
to go live abroad in the future.

16. I was very happy with my choice afterwards, he gave a very interesting seminar. And what
surprised me the most is how harsh he was towards the current state of Europe. I expected him to
have a lot of praise for Europe, but he was being very hard on the state of Europe and how, if
things would not change, it could be the downfall of the Europe as we know it. Out of this I
learned a lot about the political state of Europe and to look out for changes in the future, if these
changes don’t happen, odds are high I’ll move out of Europe in the future.
I didn’t ask him any questions during or after the lecture as there wasn’t anything in specific left
unanswered.

17. APPLYING FOR A JOB ABROAD
AULA 2 KANTIENBERG | 16/02/2016 @ 15:00 BY KYRA VELDKAMPS

18. • Your own individual path
• Working (+ living) in a different country vs Being posted on a job in another country
• Work vs Internship

19. SKILLS & COMPETENCES
• Avoid cliches
• Use distinctive skills & qualities
• Skills must be relevant & honest
‘A good CV should be different & adapted to every qualification.’

20. I came out of this seminar with a hunger, as though I was still longing for more information on this
topic. Although I must say that it was a good point to bring up about the EEA as I had no knowledge
of this yet. I’ve never actually needed a visa yet because I haven’t gone outside of the EU yet. So to
know how visa’s exactly work and how to obtain a work permit is something I found interesting, but
that’s probably the only part I really found interesting.
I did not prepare anything in specific beforehand for this seminar and neither did I ask any
questions during or after the seminar.
Reflection?

21. WHEN DIGITAL BECOMES HUMAN
AULA 1 KANTIENBERG | 26/04/2016 @ 15:00 BY STEVEN VAN BELLEGHEM

22. • Everyone is connected
• Things are speeding up
• Old days : 10 years to adapt a new reality vs Now : 1 year at most
• Machine learning & Artificial intelligence

23. This was probably the best seminar I attended out of the four seminars I chose from inside the
school. The speaker was really creative and gave me a lot of insight on how the internet as a
whole has grown to a point where u can’t exclude it. The part most fascinating to me was how
he mentions what the future will look like, with companies being unable to grow unless they’re
active on the internet both In ecommerce (in any shape or form, be it their own website or web
shop) and social interactions. I’m glad I already have a great deal of experience in some of the
ICT skills (besides the standard Microsoft Office) as these skills seem to be very valuable going
forward.
I did not prepare anything in specific beforehand for this seminar and neither did I ask any
questions during or after the seminar.
Reflection?

24. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME