Bouffe Ry is the student organization for students of French philology and translation. The chair of Bouffe Ry, a second year French philology student with an art history minor Irinja Bickert, ended up studying French because she is fascinated by the French culture and especially French Cinema. Since the beginning of her studies she has been involved in all sorts of extracurricular activities, and she quickly found herself in the Bouffe’s Board.
As a boardmember of Bouffe, Irinja has been able to bring some of that beloved French culture to her everyday life in Helsinki, whether it is by taking part in cheese and wine tasting or film excursion, or just simply spending time with like-minded people.
Despite her very full calendar, she made time for this little interview where she tells us how she became the chair of the student organisation and what it has been like in practice.
”As a freshman I took part in our subject association’s activities because I wanted to get to know other students besides freshmen. During my first term in the board I was the vice-chairperson and in charge of all the cultural activities, so it was pretty natural that if I wanted to continue as a board member I’d become the next chair.”
Being the chair requires keeping tabs on people and dealines, as Irinja elaborates:
“I love being in Bouffe’s board because that gives me a chance to decide what kind of happenings are organized for students, for example. The biggest job is to keep everything under control, to make sure that everything that needs to be done gets done. Meeting preparations take some time; one must keep a record of all the past and future events.
At this point of spring I’ve been thinking about the new freshmen and already making plans for next semester. I have been in contact with the tutors about the schedule of the orientation week.”
Irinja doesn’t consider herself to be a very dominant chair:
“I really try to be a non-leader, because I hope that then the overall atmosphere would be more creative and everyone would feel they have the freedom to take more responsibility and improve Bouffe.”
She also encourages everyone to join an organization and emphasizes the importance of participating:
“I highly recommend every student to get involved in some organization. You don’t need to commit yourself to board membership or anything, but assisting to arrange an event is a lot of fun and a big help!”