We recently sat down to chat with Yalin Chen and Jingyi Ye, the new Volunteering Officers for 2022-23. Both are BSc Economics students in their 2nd year, and they have an amazing vision for how they want to work together with the Volunteering Service and UCL students over the next year.
You can check out the video of our interview here. Make sure to also follow Yalin and Jingi on their UCL Volunteering Officer Instagram!
Would you be able to introduce yourselves?
Jingyi: Hi! I’m Jingyi and I’m doing a BSc Economics, 2nd year. I am doing a job-share with Yalin as the Volunteering Officer this year. In my spare time I like dancing and watching anime!
Yalin: Hi! My name is Yalin, and I’m job-sharing Volunteering Officer with Jingyi. We’re actually doing the same course, BSc Economics!
Why did you want to become a Volunteering Officer?
Jingyi: The reason why I wanted to be the Volunteering Officer is that I want there to be a better volunteering community, and to make everyone in UCL want to do volunteering and to have a great experience doing volunteering here.
Yalin: We want to work together with students, clubs and societies, and also the Student Union to make a better Volunteering Service to everyone at UCL!
What volunteering experience do you have?
Yalin: I have been to different London state schools and volunteered there as a maths tutor every week. I work with groups of students to teach them maths and I find that very enjoyable. It actually helps me to build lots of different skills, like communication skills, planning skills, time-management skills, and that is really helpful in my academic studies as well. I think that volunteering is a very good opportunity for you to build up your skills and also to meet a lot of new friends as well!
Jingyi: I’ve done various kinds of volunteering. Some have been one-offs, some long-term inside UCL, and also outside UCL. I’m doing long-term volunteering at the Royal Opera House, as a Welcome Host. For this, I basically offer help when the customers at Royal Opera House need it. You need to listen and help them to solve their problems, and to make them feel welcome when they step into the Royal Opera House. I have also done some one-off volunteering at UCL. For example, I did the Language and Culture Day last year, which we will have this year as well, which is basically teaching primary school students about language and cultures. I think that this is really interesting because you can meet different people and collaborate together. Also, this is a really new field to me, teaching primary school students, so it is really interesting and can also develop new skills, as Yalin said. You can develop your communication skills, collaboration skills, and teamwork. There are really a lot of advantages that you can gain from doing volunteering.
Do you have any goals that you want to achieve in your time as volunteering officers?
Yalin: We really want to build a very strong and close relationship between clubs and societies the Student Union, and also all UCL students as well. We want to work on having more volunteering socials, and promoting the Volunteering Service and making it more accessible to UCL students. For clubs and societies, we want to work with the volunteering officers of different clubs and societies of UCL and work on a lot more Student Led Projects, whether it’s short-term, one-off, or long-term ones. And working with the Volunteering Service at the Student Union, we want to build a better, more inclusive volunteering service. Those are our main goals.
Jingyi: We want to listen to your voices, to get more suggestions from students at UCL, about the Volunteering Service. We want to know about what kind of volunteering you would like to see, and what kind of new activities you would like to see at the Volunteering Service. We really appreciate your advice and suggestions! All of your voices will help make the Volunteering Service a better community!