Events at York

There are many events held at the University throughout the year. Here are a couple of highlights:

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SPiKL is an intra-university language exchange platform for university students based in the UK. Students are given the opportunity to learn, practice, teach and exchange languages as they partnered with another student. The SPiKL society hosted an event as part of the ISA’s Global Week, with the aim to teach students different songs in different languages. In turn, four students sang and taught the groups different songs in different languages, including German, French, and Mandarin Chinese.

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The York International Development Conference is an annual event that is held at the University of York. It is organised and hosted by the International Development Society; it is their main event of the year. Each year, they manage to get an impressive range of speakers.

This year’s crop of speakers was particularly good. Linda McAven, MEP, Chair of the European Parliament International Development Committee as well as John Hilary, the Executive Director of War on Want.

My favourite speaker of the day was Dr Eugenie Regan. She has worked with the UN Environment Programme and currently works in the private sector with The Biodiversity Consultancy.

The title of her talk was The Butterfly Effect: a reflection on biodiversity, sustainability, and minimalism. It was interesting to talk about international development from an environmental aspect. Her current work revolves around working with private companies to decrease their environmental impact.

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As well as the two events mentioned here, there has been a debate held over ‘Brexit’ as well as a Model UN Conference which was held at York. The York Union is a student-run society that holds interesting talks and debates throughout the year also. Their last debate was about the erosion of freedom of speech at universities and they hosted speakers such as Jon Snow, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell. There is definitely plenty to get involved in!