Brush off your suit, shine your shoes, and polish that résumé, because it’s that time of year again, time for Lake Forest College’s annual Speed Networking event.
Speed Networking is an opportunity for students to network with professionals from a variety of industries. Each student gets a series of five-minute meetings with different professionals, allowing them to make 30 new connections.
This year the popular event will be held on Thursday, November 5, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. in the Sports and Recreation Center.
Scott Mason ’16 said Speed Networking is “a good experience” to get exposed “to all of the different firms in the Chicago area” and to get “great networking practice in general.”
Other upperclassmen look back on Speed Networking as a positive experience. Getting the opportunity to meet with people in your field of interest can help give insight on whether or not that area will be a good fit for you, some said. But not everyone agrees.
“I haven’t ever gone [to Speed Networking]because meeting new people makes me nervous. Also, I always hear about it too late,” Olivia Zyszczynski ’17 said. Zyszczynski and others said their inability to interact with that many people all at once is not something for which they are well-suited.
Several first-year students said they have high hopes for the annual their companies. “It’s a very interesting concept,” businesses and organizations Olga Gutan ’19 said.
Given the short amount of time students are allotted to interact with the professionals, Gutan said she feels Speed Networking offers them good practice to learn: “to showcase the traits that they consider the most important about themselves.”
Big names in the Chicagoland area are always in attendance and are always looking for young people to bring their insights to their companies.
A version of this article appears in print on October 21, 2015, on page 1 of the Stentor with the headline: Speed Networking is coming up: Be prepared!
