Case Study: The Vietnamese Student Association

The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) at the University of California, Riverside is an organization that hopes to promote and preserve the Vietnamese culture. Established in 1984, the organization strives to provide a home for students that are far away from theirs. Although VSA is culture based, the organization hosts an annual high school outreach event called Future Leaders Summit that is run by our Outreach Director and volunteers. The one-day free event is open to students of different cultures that hopes to give students a small taste of what the college experience is like and to provide workshops that would benefit them in the future. Although the purpose of the Future Leaders Summit is great and beneficial, the organization of the …show more content…
Thorough planning did not happen until a month before and there was miscommunication between the staff members and volunteers. Our positions during the event were not concrete and no description was necessarily given in order for us to carry out our job. Volunteer Sharon Lac stated that she did not know what to do half of the time during their information meetings. All she knew was that the volunteers had to tour and talk to these high school kids. Further instructions were given literally at the last meeting before the day of the event. The schedule that was also made for the event was not finalized until three days before. The entire preparation leading up to the event was completely disorganized and poorly planned even though the event was successful where the students enjoyed it. Procrastination may be inevitable; however, in order to improve the organization and planning for the event, communication and a planner are needed in order to keep everyone on the same page. Instead of pushing everything to one day, spreading out and focusing one thing at a time on different days would be more effective than cramming everything …show more content…
The mission and goals for this event can benefit high school students. However, a big reform must be made in order to reach that goal. Organization is key and if everything is well planned out and was given a lot of effort and thought into it, putting everything at the last minute will not happen. Procrastination should not happen and that spacing everything out will be helpful. Workshops need to be fixed where it gears toward college and is longer than just 10 minutes. Students would be able to get more out of it and may actually find it more useful. Finally, training our volunteers for certain situations and giving them an outline of what to talk about would be helpful. Having them come up with things to say on the spot may turn out well, but also looks very unprofessional. Future Leaders Summit can leave a big impact on the high school students. It is up to the organizers to plan it well and give them a great experience and for them to take something back with them on the