This week for Rose Café Christa Downey came and spoke about the benefits of networking and how to go about expanding your network. I found it very interesting how both Christa and professor Avery encouraged students to go into office hours to not only ask their professors questions about course material, but simply to chat and build a relationship. This will certainly be difficult for me, because I only go into office hours for course help, and I do not think of this as a time for general conversation. Also, in many of the office hours I have attended, they have either been open to everyone, and so there are multiple students there all asking different questions, or they are by appointment only. In the latter case, I am hesitant to schedule office hours just for a conversation, especially if that means I may be taking away the professors time to help another student.

On the other hand, Christa also talk about building relationships not only with professors, but Cornell faculty in general. I think that this is great advise, because while the professors here at Cornell are very distinguished and can provide great advice on career pathways in their field, there are many other Cornell faculty that are very interesting and would make great additions to someone’s network. These connections can come in many different forms for different people, such as connecting with coaches, librarians, TA’s, or even graduate students and alumni. Personally, as a member of the varsity swim team, I have a weekly meeting with my coach. There is not a general focus for this meeting, and I enjoy being able to talk about anything that has been happening to me that week.  While these contacts are great to have, I am going to take Christa’s advise and try to branch out my network in every direction throughout my time here at Cornell.