Already quite some time ago, when we could all congregate in our beautiful faculty building, we organised, in collaboration with Ad Informandum, ECU ’92, JSVU, Perikles and Politeia, the now annual event “Working at the Ministries”. Law students come into contact with the field of law and the career possibilities that field has to offer mostly when they visit law firms. Working at a law firm, however, is most certainly not the only career opportunity someone with a law degree has (especially when that degree is in the field of European and/or Public International Law). To show our members and others interested in attending what the Dutch ministries have to offer we gave the ministires the chance to show us their best whilst enlightening the participants with what it means to work at a ministry.

The evening started off with a plenary session during which it was discussed what working a a ministry generally entails and what ‘kind’ of people work at the ministries. A returning sentence throughout the evening would turn out to be that people who work at one of the ministries want to have the feeling that they are “making a change”. This characteristic can only be admired and resonated greatly with most of the participants present during the plenary session.

After the plenary session had ended participants were asked to get to the classroom of their first workshop, organised by one specific ministry. Quizzes, powerpoints and other forms of presentations had been prepared by the representatives of the ministries, who more often than not were presenting their story with two people to provide greater perspective of what it means t work at ‘their’ ministry. A second round of workshops followed thereafter, providing the participants the chance to visit another ministry they might be interested in working at.

After the workshops ended most participants had a lot of questions left they wanted to ask the representatives, which is why after the workshops there was the possibility to do so while enjoying a glass of beer, wine or soda and a snack. We feel the night was a success and hope the participants feel like they were able to decide whether working at a ministry is their cup of tea.