Since it’s career fair season at NC State, I wanted to try and help build my network as well as understand more about the industry and fields I plan to work in by reaching out to NC State alumni. Hoping to find some alumni that were in the specific field I want to go into who were working on issues that I want to help solve, I went through the NC State Alumni Association’s directory to see if I could search by post-graduate degree and career to find someone to talk to. However, I got a disappointing email that the alumni directory was being taken offline due to underutilization.
NC State prides itself on an extensive alumni community across the globe, and beyond Earth, especially when it comes to receiving donations through the newly annual Day of Giving. However, there are no avenues available for students to connect with NC State alumni directly and search for possible mentors or people to network with from the Wolfpack community.
Although the name NC State Student Alumni Association (SAA) implies that the organization sets out to bridge the gap between students and alumni, the opportunities to network are actually thin. The organization, which requires a sign-up fee ranging from $25 to $75, depending on the membership length, advertises its main benefits as free BEAT T-shirts, student-alumni networking dinners and a deal on class rings. Other than the networking dinners, none of these other benefits actually serve as a means to connect the students with alumni.
Moreover, when we take a closer look at the student-alumni networking dinners, there is only a select number of distinguished alumni and a select number of students chosen to participate. If you don’t get a slot to participate or don’t have an alumni present in a field or discipline that you’re interested in, then you’re out of luck. Don’t get me wrong, life advice from accomplished alumni is applicable to all industries and aspects of life; however, sometimes you just want to connect with people in your field or ask questions about someone’s life and work in an occupation you want to pursue.
When I emailed the SAA for tech support regarding the directory, I was told to go on LinkedIn and try to find alumni there. Although LinkedIn is a great resource for networking and should be utilized by all students, going in with a broad net of “NCSU alumni that work in the field I like” can be overwhelming and nearly impossible. LinkedIn serves a greater purpose of connecting to specific companies but might not provide support in ways that someone still exploring their options might need.
With that being said, and no other prominent and open-ended alumni networking connections, there is very obviously a gap in providing current students with a way to connect with NC State alumni across disciplines, locations, etc. This article isn’t meant to bash the SAA, but rather to call for someone or some organization to take it upon themselves to bridge the gap between students and alumni. Even more, the University should be providing resources that more readily allow for students and alumni to be in more frequent contact.
