How important was the alumni network for you/your D/S?

mathmom
Thu, 28 Mar 2019 13:24:59 +0000

So S1 joined the listserv early on, but I will admit he did not go to the fall recruiting fair his freshman year and pickings were slim by the spring. He ended up in the same job he had the previous summer which he got from our connections. But CMU really was very pre-professionally focussed. Kids in internships recommended their friends for the following summer. Word got out. I don’t think my kid every stepped into the career office after the first year.

Younger son worked a campus job every summer, working the way up the hierarchy until he was a supervisor. He did everything the career office suggested. He wanted an NGO doing policy work - all the connections they had seemed to deal with economics. He did reach out to friends. In the end he worked for two prestigious NGOs as an intern, got a job with one of them. Finished out the project he’d been working on and decided NGO work was not what he wanted. His current job required no connections.