You can definitely start networking in college. Here are 6 places to find connections.
Networking is such an essential piece of building a career, with so many stats demonstrating that the best professional opportunities often come from the people you know.
Just because you’re still in college doesn’t mean it’s too early to start building these valuable connections. You never know who can help you as you’re looking for an internship, trying to land your first job or seeking professional advice to help you on your path. The more contacts you have, the larger your reach will be — and the more opportunities will be available to you.
The good news: There are places to meet interesting folks all around you. Try these six venues to start building your professional network.
1. Use your classes for more than college credit
Think about it: Every day that you’re in class, you’re surrounded by other smart, interesting, driven people. You never know when one of them may be a valuable asset to your career later.
Related: How to use your alumni database to make real-world connections
For starters, your professors are working professionals and are often well-connected in their fields. Especially the ones who teach classes related to your dream profession can serve as mentors, flag potential opportunities or make introductions. To start networking with your professors, make an effort to chat with them after class or go to their office hours to discuss their background and share some of your career goals.
Don’t discount your classmates, either! You can support each other’s careers in the short term by sharing opportunities you see, making introductions to people in your respective networks and learning together about how to be successful professionals. In the long term, you never know if some of your pajama-clad classmates will be in powerful positions or running companies one day. While it can be intimidating to make the first move, just saying hi to people you sit next to in class could make you a friend and valuable connection.
2. Get involved on campus
In addition to connecting with your classmates, you can extend your reach by getting involved on campus. While any sports team, fraternity, sorority, club or honor society can help you develop relationships, finding some related to your field of study will be especially valuable for meeting future movers and shakers who can propel your career forward. Plus, many of these clubs have faculty or professional advisers that you can get to know as well.
For instance, if you’re interested in politics, student government could be a good choice. Dreams of journalism? Join the school paper. Keep an eye on bulletin boards and club fairs to discover new opportunities to meet people.
3. Visit the career center
Don't ignore your campus career center. This place will have plenty of free resources to help you as you look forward to building your network and your career.
For instance, your career center often hosts regular job fairs, which can be valuable places to practice your networking skills, make connections with folks out in the working world and potentially even find a job or internship. Many career centers also offer alumni databases full of impressive professionals who are open to helping current students out.
4. Use internships and part-time jobs
Obviously, if you’re gaining professional experience with a part-time job or internship, you can use these as opportunities to build your network, too.
Even if you aren’t going to be at these places long, develop relationships with as many people as you can. Your boss and anyone else who you work closely with are obviously good options. You can also reach out to people in other departments or higher up on the ladder to see if they’ll get coffee with you. Even people in part-time jobs that seem unrelated to your career goals are worth connecting with — you never know what they’ll go on to do in the future.
Related: I pitched my own internship. Here’s how you can, too.
Do good work, share your professional goals with these people and make sure to gather their contact information before your last day so you can stay in touch.
5. Build an online presence
While networking in person needs to be part of the plan, you can also do plenty of networking online. The great thing here is that you aren't restricted by geography — you can make connections with literally anyone who might benefit your career.
Start by joining LinkedIn if you haven’t already. Add people you've worked with along with your classmates, professors and advisers to help expand your network. Depending on your industry, Twitter could also be a valuable networking platform.
Related: How to build a LinkedIn profile if you’ve never had a job
Then, reach out cold to a few people who you admire. See if they’re open to having a short call or meeting for coffee to let you “pick their brain” for some professional advice. Not everyone will respond or have time, but if even a few do, it can help your career immensely.
6. Reach out to people you already know
It's great to make new connections but also network with people you already know. Think about teachers you were close with in high school, family friends, parents from your long-term babysitting gig, colleagues from part-time jobs. Add them to LinkedIn and talk about what you want to do after college. They may have some ideas or be able to point you in the right direction.
After all the work you put in to build your network, you don't just want to add connections to LinkedIn and then forget about them. Invest time in maintaining your network by reaching out regularly, sharing updates and asking how they’re doing.
Networking is powerful, and the more you do now, the better position you'll be in upon graduation. Reach out to people now, and you won't regret it.
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