Everything I have in life is from networking effects in college, from landing my first research position in undergrad. Grades don't matter, I was an average student. Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.
>Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.
Networking isn't everything but it's definitely the lion's share. Anyone who paints the world as a meritocracy is disillusioned, but it helps to have merit to fall back on. There are many who get through life and succeed financially almost entirely through networking and situation.
I'd add some nuance to that - in my experience, networking is a multiplicative (not additive) effect to your actual skills. You can get a letter of recommendation from a Nobel Prize winner, but even then it has to say something other than "Liz Lemon numbers among my employees", you know?
Interesting. Did you go to an Ivy league, cause I went to a state school and I haven't used networking for anything ever. Granted, I've only worked at GAFAM and they hire tons of people so that could be part of it.
I went to a state school, and my entire professional career is due to the friends I made there. College was a very rough time for me, and I wasn't getting many interviews with my resume (really poor GPA, no internships, no extracurriculars, etc). A friend hooked me up with a job at a startup and landing interviews since has been no problem.
This isn't a glamorous story where my network made me a millionaire, but my life would be much worse having not made those friends back then.
Internships definitely help (GAFAM uses them like extended interviews for full time offers). I also think it helps that my gpa was ok (3.05) and the school i went to (purdue) was highly ranked enough and big enough that we had entire recruiting teams come out to our career fairs which is where I got my first internship. Some companies even sent out employees for an entire week to our campus to do interviews for internship and new grad hiring.
I went to a state school, albeit R1 which has a lot more funding and therefore opportunities, but I believe every state flagship is R1 anyway. Actually this in state school was cheaper than some other in state schools that were considered party schools/easier academically. Were you recruited at a career fair? fangs always had a big presence at our biannual fairs and people I knew seemed to have no issues finding internships coast to coast.
I went to purdue so we had absolutely massive career fairs and I got my first CS internship at GAFAM through one. After that, it hasn't been hard getting interviews at the other ones.
Agree that one should maximize networking, but college is not required to do so. Find like minded people where ever you are, always be seeking opportunities (learning, revenue generating, and all others) and avoid credentials and their associated costs. Be able to get the work done, learn how to when you can’t, and be enjoyable to work with, that’s most of what a job is.
This is my experience too. I haven't exactly avoided credentials as a principle (I have a BEng), but I totally agree with "Be able to get the work done and enjoyable to work with".
Do a good job, be secure in your abilities, have empathy for others. I'm a freelancer of 13 years with a lot of happy clients and – before I started living off-grid – I'd earn a month's rent in half a day. Now I don't have rent or mortgage.
Sure, I haven't climbed any corporate ladder, but I hope that in a decent company you can be those things and also do well.
8/9 went to law school at Harvard or Yale (the Notorious R.B.G. went to Columbia Law).
For undergrad, 3 went to Princeton, 1 to Columbia (not RBG, interestingly), 1 to Harvard, 1 to Yale, 1 to Cornell, 1 to Stanford, and 1 to Holy Cross.
That's evidence that signaling matters in a law degree, but the larger context of this discussion is of an undergraduate degree and I don't think the signalling is as strong there.
I agree regarding undergrad mattering less than law school, but as long as we're splitting hairs about RBG, let's split them correctly! =)
She and her husband both went to Harvard Law, though the husband started and graduated one year earlier. He then got a job at a New York law firm and RBG transferred to Columbia to stay near him. She completed her third year at Columbia and received their law degree.
Harvard Law actually has a rule (adopted later) where you can complete your third year elsewhere and still receive a Harvard degree. They offered this degree to RBG, who refused it[1]. So technically you're right that she's a Columbia Law grad, though it's not a stretch to call her a Harvard Law grad as well.
I think for the 99% university contacts are not a useful "network". What good are a bunch of entry level employees to you? By the time anyone you've graduated with is in a position to help you out you've already been working for at least 10 years, and your more recent professional network is where the value will be.
So unless you are in the Skull and Bones and your frat bro's uncle is an executive at Goldman Sachs, and that uncle was a frat bro with your Dad who's an executive at Morgan Stanly, no.
But, a college education is still a valuable thing for getting a job. Depending on what classes you take anyway.
> Genuine question as I haven’t been to college (yet?): is this actually a thing? I’ve also heard it doesn’t help with that.
As someone who DIDN'T network in college and compares to peers who did - it is utterly devastating. It is hugely influential.
Admittedly, your networking won't matter as much if there isn't high movement from the school to your work region... In my case, I went to a school where most of the student body had no intentions of leaving the region. I was also in an extremely anti-social department that was overly competitive.
Speaking as a UK university grad (14 years ago), this was absolutely not a thing for me. I made some friends, but went into web development at a small company rather than a large grad training scheme. I spent a year there and I have been self-employed ever since. I think precisely none of my career development has been due to my university-related network.
But perhaps it is different at US colleges (or for others in the UK). I personally couldn't wait to put academia behind me and get into the real world.
I now live off-grid in Central Portugal. I have clients I still work for, and I get referrals to new clients too. I'm also starting a wireless ISP here, which is great for networking and meeting people :-)
Yes, it's absolutely a thing. I don't know how experiences vary, but Alex Azar, the current secretary of health and human services, former president of Eli Lilly, was an alumni of my frat.
I've also hit up random alums at various companies who have given me referrals, there are a lot of friends of friends who are in pretty good positions, such as founder/CEO/partner at various companies and VCs that will be willing to chat with you if you happen to know someone they're connected to that can vouch for you. I was actually interviewing with a company, and I found out the CEO was an alum of my school, and we had a lot of fun talking about college.
You can learn almost everything you can learn in university outside of it. The true value are the people you’ll meet that share the same interests as you do. Life is hell a lot of easier if you know the right / enough people.
My connections helped me little. If I just worked during that time I think I would have been way farther up on the hard metrics of career progress.
Not to say that I didn't get anything out of college. The campus radio stations introduced me to people who have had a tremendous amount of influence on me.
Sure. Read bios to research career trajectories. For example, read the bios of billionaires of who made a lot their money via renumeration. Cheryl Sandberg, for example. Steve Ballmer. Made their connections in college.
In most cases, you participate in the world through other people. How much you use your connections is up to you, but such connections allow you to traverse quickly and deeply through the space of opportunities.
I depends on the school, but networking matter a lot. I'm not saying that it should, but it really seems to.
Outside of ambition, the people matter too.
I know a lot of marriages that started in college. I've met a lot of my best friends there too. Some of my professors changed my life, and not in a textbook way, but in a human way. I made a lot of mistakes there, and I know a lot of people did too. But it was college, you're kinda supposed to make mistakes and grow from them. Take the wrong major, kiss the wrong person, say the wrong thing, etc.
I'm not saying that you can't have those experiences elsewhere. Most people do.
But the structure of the place makes it a lot easier to meet other people your age, fall in love, fall out of love, have your opinions challenged, listen to some great/terrible music, imbibe too much of the wrong thing, get help on classwork, etc. You can still not opt into it, of course. And you can do that almost anywhere too.
But it's a lot easier.
Virtual classrooms aren't going to replace that. Honestly, until we get a vaccine, that's all kinda on hold. Sorry class of 2020 :(