Prepare and share alumni questions

Past L&S alumni visitors

Soon an alumni guest will visit our class to talk about their own "career narrative" and provide real-world insight and advice on career development strategies and tactics.  This brief assignment is meant to ensure that you are ready to make the most out of this visit.

Background

These UW alumni come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have engaged in a wide variety of jobs and industries over their lives —  but all of them are former L&S students and all of them are eager to chat with you about their own career paths. They are all Badgers and have great affection for Madison -- so you already have something in common!

Here are the instructions we give to our alumni volunteers:

During each of the above weeks, you will be speaking to a different group of students. Each time (as noted above) is 30 minutes. Each week, we ask that you share your career story (what you do now and how you got there), any strategies that helped you in your career before and after graduation, and how a liberal arts background is helpful professionally. Students will also be prepared with questions based on the particular course content they’re studying that week.

Steps to complete

1. Find the alum on LinkedIn.  Your TA or professor will have announced the name of your alumni visitor.  Do a quick LinkedIn Links to an external site. search to learn about the alum and think about what kinds of questions might be appropriate to ask them.  (You might even want to ask them to link to you, if your own prospective career path is related to theirs.)  

2. Come up with three questions.  Write down three possible questions to ask this alumni visitor.  See if you can write specific questions based on the alum's own career as described on LinkedIn.

3. Turn it in. Upload the document with your three questions here on Canvas to receive credit for this assignment.  And come prepared to ask at least one of those questions in person during the alumni visit!

4. Share one of your questions with your classmates.   Go to your section's Discussions board and find the posting from your TA titled something like "Reply here with questions for our alumni visitors".  Under that posting, use the "Reply" function to post one of your three questions.  (Read through any other questions that have already been posted, and try not to duplicate those!)

After your alumni visit

If you are looking for more examples of UW-Alumni providing career advice and mentorship, see the Badger to Badger alumni videos of the College of Letters and Science.

Most of our alumni visitors have also donated important resources to the university -- including the resources that make this class possible. It is a good idea to thank them for their continued engagement with our campus, and their support for our educational mission.

Examples

Here are some sample questions that have worked well in the past:

• What do you see as the greatest value of a broad liberal arts and sciences education?
• What particular traits do liberal arts and sciences graduates possess that help them compete for employment?
• How did you choose your major, and how would you recommend that young people choose a major today?
• What are the most important skills needed to be successful professionally, and how should students go about developing those skills?
• How have you used networking in your professional career?
• How should students go about building a professional network?

You may also wish to look at the list of questions in Katherine Hansen, "What to ask," in A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2008) Download Katherine Hansen, "What to ask," in A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2008)

As an example, here's how one alumni mentor answered some of these questions:

If you forgive my skills and tools analogy, the liberal arts give you all of civilization as your toolbox. You have the opportunity to have a very broad understanding of much of what we as a society collectively know and exceptional deepness in selected areas of your greatest interest. The broad understanding adds immense value to your specific knowledge, if you employ it.

Follow your passion. Find something you simply must do – but then surround it with complementary fields and skills -- and let complementary have a very wide definition.

A good liberal arts student should work to gain a wide understanding of the accomplishments and issues overcome by our civilization. Knowledge of what has worked and what has failed in the human endeavor, what has moved us and frightened us – and a store of its great personalities, metaphors, and dilemmas. One then must strive to understand how to apply this information to current issues and problems.

Highest on my list are speaking and writing skills. Your ability to move other people to follow you, to sell your idea or solution to a problem or to convince others of your rightness, to acquire resources to tackle problems or to multiply your efforts, and your ability to lead all follow from articulate and clear expression of your ideas. Equally important, your supervisor’s or employer’s comfort in having you represent the organization outside of its direct control follow from this as well. My verbal skills led me to be selected to represent the UN inspection process in 1991 to the UN Security Council in an executive session – probably because I did not sound like a typical physicist. I have no idea what followed directly from that assignment but it likely was significant. Similarly, I was effective, powerful and trusted as a spokesman for the Department of Defense in interagency and public matters in my years in Washington.

-- Jay Davis (majored in physics, minored in German literature and linguistics)

As you can see, these alumni volunteers offer a wealth of experience and insight for us to take advantage of. Above all, please remember to always be enthusiastic and respectful with these alumni volunteers -- just as you would with any potential decision-maker or professional mentor as you try to build your professional career.