Find Your People
Academia trains you to believe your work speaks for itself. Write good papers, give good talks, and opportunities will follow. Build it and they will come.
Unfortunately, the world is not very likely to come to your front door.
You have to consciously put action into meeting people and making yourself known.
Most PhDs graduate with a network that's both narrow and shallow, mostly just grad students in their field. People with a lot of brain power, but too early in their career to help each other succeed.
How do you build meaningful professional relationships when you've spent years in isolation with your research? How do you approach people without feeling like you're just using them as stepping stones? What if you feel like you lost the ability to function like a normal human?
This station helps you regain that confidence. Yeah, maybe it’s a little weird to plan how to make friends. But networking is exponential, and this is just enough planning to get the train rolling.
We'll explore how to initiate conversations that lead to genuine connections, how to provide value before asking for anything, and how to maintain relationships without it feeling like a chore.
With enough time and curation, your network will benefit from knowing you and will help propel you to success.