Meeting UWaterloo alumni to share ideas and experiences
Hi there! I’m Colette, a second-year student in the Sustainability and Financial Management Program. In a few days, I will be meeting some SAF alumni through the Fellowship Program Café and will have the opportunity to speak to them about their experience in the program, how it’s helped them in their careers, and more.
I’m
not
a
super
outgoing
person,
so
I
get
a
bit
nervous
about
networking
events
because
I
want
to
make
a
good
impression
and
don’t
want
the
conversations
to
be
boring
or
awkward.
However,
since
this
event
is
more
on
the
casual
side,
I’m
not
worried.
Plus,
I’ve
been
to
a
couple
of
networking
events
before
and
I’m
starting
to
get
the
hang
of
them.
If you are like me and tend to get nervous when networking with people or tend to not know what to say, my best tip is to join a group instead of trying to network one-on-one. This way, you can avoid awkward silences that may occur, and another student will most likely take the chance to ask a question, giving you more time to think. It also helps me to have some go-to questions that I can use to get the conversation started. I usually like to ask the networker questions like:
-
What extracurriculars were you involved with while you were in university?
-
Could you give me a brief rundown of what your career has been like so far?
From there, I come up with more tailored questions based on their responses.
Hopefully, you find these tips helpful! Personally, I’m really excited to talk to alumni about what their experience in their program was like during their time at the University of Waterloo and to learn how much it’s changed since then.