Networking Your Way Through College

I have been away from the blogosphere for the past few weeks for reasons beyond my control. We are now in the back to school frenzy and I am wishing a fun and successful semester to all of you who have been brave enough to return on campus for one more semester. Today I would like to share with you some pointers on how to make your campus network beneficial to you. If there is one single thing I wish I had done better while in college, it certainly is building a vast and strong network of friends.  All the tips I am going to provide here were borrowed from a friend of mine who had built such a vast network that I called him the Mayor because he seemed to know everybody on campus. For a student who is commuting to campus and who is not involved in extra curricular activities, you have to give him probes! So when I asked my friend Leo (that’s his name)  how did he go about garnering friends left and right, he told me that most of his acquaintances are through the university’s gym and most particularly the gym workout room.

Because he spends an average of two hours a day in the gym, he gets to encounter a variety of people, guys as well as gals (YES!), some of which happen to be his existing classmates. He compares the gym to a barbershop because you meet all kind of people and you get to exchange ideas on a host of issues ranging from which professors to avoid at all cost to where to go for fun on campus. So semester after semester, one Facebook friend after another, my friend has been able to make friends from each college of the university. He has benefited a lot from his network and in a lot of different ways. For instance, he was able to get most of his college textbooks for free by bartering with his friends… I for a fact received a few textbooks for free through him because two or three of his friends offloaded their textbooks on him.  He was also able to get the low down on a professor method of composing tests/exams, now this is very important…if you can identify at the beginning of each semester what you need to look out for in order to stir yourself away from nasty surprises during your exams, you have already won half the battle for earning a good grade. My friend also would tap his network to get free and personalized tutoring from his smartest friends who sometimes were valedictorians.

Basically, my friend almost got a free ride while in college thanks to his vast network. Now there are other ways to network in college including but no limited to joining a club or extramural sport’s team, becoming a student worker, tailgating etc… Now you see the value of building a vast network while in college so go out there and build your own network. If ever you have some wild stories on how you have benefited from your network, I would love to hear about them.