Students will have the chance to network with Augustana alumni of different ages and majors Thursday.
The “speed networking” will work like speed dating, where students can talk to three alumni of their choice.
Juniors Laura Polizzi and Veronica Bertellotti, co-presidents of the Student Alumni Council who organized the event, said the goal of the council is to help is to foster relationships between alumni and students.
“We basically serve as the segway for those that have graduated and those that are here,” said Bertellotti.
The second annual networking event, which will be held in the College Center from 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m., is meant to give students a chance to make connections with professionals in their field of study.
There will be 30 alumni attending the event, including graduates from last year up until 1960 graduates.
The event will begin with mingling, followed by a speech from an alumnus and will end with three 15-minute sessions of alumni-student conversations. Alumni will have nametags with their majors and current professions.
“It’s an event about learning,” said Bertellotti. “You might get some connections. But more than anything, it’s when I get into a situation where networking is a possibility, how am I going to handle it, what kind of questions am I going to ask, even things as simple as how do I juggle holding a drink, a plate and talking at the same time.”
Polizzi and Bertellotti said they want the networking event to become more recognizable as an annual campus event, similar to ProFair.
The Alumni Student Council has received more support from the administration and the Office of Advancement this year.
“The Office of Advancement wants us to get going because a lot of other schools have this (Alumni Student Council), and it’s very strong throughout the campus community, so I think it will bring Augie a lot closer,” said Polizzi.
The council is four years old, which means Polizzi and Bertellotti are trying to spread the council’s name.
“The club’s still pretty new and still trying to get its feet wet, so we’re trying to get more and more events happening on campus,” said Bertellotti.
The networking event will be more formal than last year, and students will have a more organized way of interacting with alumni.
Polizzi explained how networking and making connections is what will get students a job after graduation. A recent Augustana graduate landed a job interview overseas with an alumnus. Polizzi said the graduate received the job after the alumnus realized he was in the same fraternity as the graduate.
“It’s (the event) just getting students to realize that you don’t get the job unless you know someone these days,” said Polizzi. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know and how you get to know them.”
Polizzi and Bertellotti hope students will make connections with Augustana graduates, which will help them get a job in the long run.
“It’s there to show too that it’s not as if after you graduate from Augie they just let you out into the world,” said Bertellotti. “If you go to a new city, you’ll be able to look in the alumni book and see, ‘oh, there’s some Augie grads that live here, maybe I can contact them for help.’ So it’s even networking in that respect.”