Throughout the five weeks of the summer Business Innovation Program (BIP), we got the chance to meet with many different alumni from many different fields of work. Building relationships is a very important part of the program since it can set us up for finding a job after college. Along with helping us find a job, networking with many different people can help us figure out what kind of job we want to go into and give us inspiration on the things we want to do. Networking can also result in being given advice we can carry on with for the rest of our lives in the workforce. We are lucky to be given strong advice from these very successful people because it might help us get to a good position like them.
We were fortunate enough to go to dinner at the Crawfordsville Country Club and spend a couple of hours talking and asking alumni questions, whether it’s about their profession or just things we have learned throughout the internship. An interesting conversation I had was with an alum, Ben Grisemer ‘88, who works to build airplane engines. It was interesting to hear him talk about how the coronavirus affected his work, while we shared our experiences in school. This conversation can spark interest in a mechanical field or a job with airplanes. Without the networking opportunity, we might have never thought of looking into those careers. We also get the chance to network with our guest speakers at the end of their presentations. We are given downtime to talk about the presentation or anything else that came up throughout the day.
In sum, the program offers a lot of different experiences that can open doors to many opportunities. These chances for networking provide advice and support that will prove useful when looking for jobs or make a connection that can allow for more growth inside a company. I would like to thank all the guest speakers we had throughout the summer for giving us our first big networking connections that will kickstart our process of finding our first career job after Wabash.
