Student associations hold a distinctive place within business schools. Open to students across programmes and levels of study, involvement in sports, humanitarian, event-based or cultural activities creates opportunities to gain practical experience alongside academic learning.
Student associations do more than contribute to campus life. They also provide a supervised environment where students can apply what they learn, take responsibility, and develop professional skills. At EMLV, this approach is part of a broader model that combines management education, soft skills, interdisciplinary collaboration, and personal development.
When voluntary involvement becomes a source of professional experience, it can strengthen a CV and provide recruiters with concrete examples of skills acquired in practice.
Student Associations: Putting Hard Skills into Practice
In many respects, a student association operates like a small organisation. Projects need to be managed, budgets monitored, teams coordinated and results assessed.
Being involved in a student association during business school means taking responsibility for an organisation and applying technical knowledge acquired in class to real projects.
In finance, for example, an association may need to manage a budget, prepare an income statement, monitor cash flow and develop financial forecasts. On the sales side, members may sell tickets for events, promote projects and approach sponsors or partners.
In human resources, responsibilities can include recruiting new members, coordinating teams and improving internal communication. In digital marketing, associations manage communication channels, develop their identity and create content aimed at student audiences.
These responsibilities provide practical opportunities to apply hard skills while becoming familiar with situations found in professional organisations. This approach reflects the EMLV Programme Grande École’s emphasis on learning through projects and developing skills that combine management, technology and human capabilities.
Student Projects as a Way to Develop Soft Skills
Teamwork is part of everyday life in a student association. Projects require coordination among different people, deadlines must be respected, and responsibilities must be shared.
This environment puts soft skills into practice: listening, meeting management, organisation, emotional intelligence, communication and the ability to work with different personalities.
At EMLV, soft skills form part of the Programme Grande École and complement academic and professional skills. The programme places particular emphasis on communication, creativity, teamwork and stress management.
For recruiters, these competencies can help distinguish candidates with similar academic and technical profiles. Association involvement provides concrete situations that students can discuss during interviews to explain how they worked in teams, managed responsibilities or responded to unexpected situations.
Learning from Failure Through Student Associations
Student associations also provide space for experimentation. Projects sometimes encounter delays, budget constraints, organisational difficulties or outcomes that differ from initial expectations.
Within a supervised academic environment, these situations become opportunities to analyse decisions, adjust methods and build experience. Students can test ideas and take responsibility while benefiting from guidance when required.
This learning process can later become valuable during recruitment. Rather than referring only to theoretical skills, candidates can explain how they responded to a problem, adapted a project or changed their approach after encountering difficulties.
Social and Community Engagement Through Student Life
Student associations also give students opportunities to contribute to social and community projects. Fundraising for humanitarian causes, distributing school supplies, supporting children, tutoring, welcoming international students, environmental initiatives and disability inclusion are among the activities that can form part of association life.
These experiences connect individual responsibility with collective projects and provide concrete examples of values that can be discussed during a job interview.
At the Pôle Léonard de Vinci, more than 60 associations bring together students from EMLV, ESILV and IIM across areas including solidarity, business, sport, technology, multimedia, arts and culture. Their interdisciplinary organisation also creates opportunities for future managers to work alongside engineering and digital profiles.
Student association involvement therefore provides material that can be used directly on a CV: projects delivered, responsibilities held, budgets managed, teams coordinated and skills developed.
More information about student associations and student life at EMLV
