Article by Steve Eyring (Q17)
A few weeks ago, on the night of March 15th, about 15 students and 6 alumni of QUEST met at Ledo’s Restaurant for the first QUEST Student-Alumni Networking Dinner. The event was a great success, thanks in-part to the efforts of Kylie Goodell and Andie Rauta, Chair of the newly formed Quest Alumni Board (QAB).
QUEST students and alumni bond over dinner
In the QUEST Student Organization (QSO) this year, we have placed an emphasis on providing opportunities for students to engage with alumni. The value of QUEST extends beyond our three years here as students and the sense of community within QUEST doesn’t vanish after graduation. QSO and QAB have been working together to bring more of these events to the community and we have been looking into providing a platform for individual students to connect with alumni. For the upcoming fall semester, we are considering unique ways to foster these connections, such as philanthropy events and casual meetings. Instead of having these events be formal networking events where students simply attend to “get their resume out there”, we want these events to be relationship building events.
To wrap things up, I feel that the word “networking” has a cold and impersonal connotation and we want to focus on facilitating relationships. As always, QSO welcomes any ideas or suggestions you might have about what these events should be called or about their mission as a whole.
As one of the alumni fortunate enough to attend, I can reiterate how successful this event was. I encourage both QSO and the QAB to consider more student/alumni dinners and continue to push initiatives to strengthen the relationships between current QUEST students and its alumni. There are roughly 1,000 QUEST alumni out there, and they are every much a part of the QUEST community as the students, faculty, and staff currently in the Program. Once both the students and alumni truly believe that, there’s no telling how far those relationships can take us.