Beyond Academic Excellence- Weak Ties in College
Most of us come to university with academic goals in mind, and our success in achieving those goals is determined by how well we work with fellow students as well as faculty. In class, we are usually split into smaller groups to discuss themes, to solve problems, to apply concepts, and the like. Students with such support systems usually tend to do better in their studies as what one person doesn’t understand, another person might. These are simple instances of social networks that we encounter in our daily life that help us excel academically.
However, our end goal in joining university is finding a long-term job. Our biggest concern is whether we will get a summer internship that is likely to give us an offer after graduation. From the moment we step into college, we are told that we can only get the most out of university if we network. But nobody informs us which networks are the most beneficial or how to even develop them. Using the attached Forbes article as a reference, I am here to tell you that the weakest networks you build are going to land you your future job.
This article emphasizes Mark Granovetter’s idea of how mere acquaintances are more likely to help us advance professionally than intimate relations. This seems ironical as our closest friends are the ones that want the best for us. But because we both run in similar circles, chances are we know the same group of people. Since there is a large intersection in our social networks, strong ties tend to connect us with fewer new social networks. Strong ties may be more willing to help us in the job search, but weak ties will usually have more contacts and resources to offer. That is because acquaintances are more likely to be part of a totally different social network and as such, they come with a whole lot of new information. These “loose-tie contacts” have their own strong ties and through our acquaintanceship, we get access to their strong ties and the social networks they belong to, giving us access to more job opportunities.
If it is apparent that weak ties are more resourceful, then how do we take advantage of them? The article gives us tips on how we can utilize our weak ties to the fullest. The first one is to “Follow Our Curiosity”. In our context, it means we should reach out to anyone, be it a professor researching on our topic of interest or a club that we want to be involved with. And if we get the chance to chat with them, we should do our research, come up with unpredictable questions, and “Thread Lightly” in our interactions. We must also make a lasting impression so that there is hope for future networks. Although we might seek out weak ties like this, weak ties might also come and find us. We never know where we are going to meet our future employer so we should always “Be Open”. At last, we should never give up and “Keep Digging”. There is no limit to the number of weak ties we can build and there will come a time when our effort pays off.
All in all, I believe as university students, we should try and expand our weak social networks to get the best out of university, both academically and professionally.
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