October 31, 2024
Meghan O'Toole
Students and alumni share takeaways from 2024 Speed Networking
The Gorter Family Career Advancement Center’s signature fall event, Speed Networking, provided students with the opportunity to meet with professionals in the Forester Network for short networking rounds where they gained valuable career advice, practiced essential networking skills, and learned about available internships and jobs.
This year, over 4,000 connections were made between 151 professionals and 368 students, the highest number of both professionals and students in attendance since the event’s beginning 16 years ago. Over 20 percent of Lake Forest College students attended the event, smashing last year’s attendance record by nearly 100 students. View more photos of the event.
Participating professionals represented an impressive array of organizations across the Career Pathways, including both long-standing employer partners for the College as well as noteworthy, new additions to the event. See the full list of organizations that were represented this year.
Here’s what students had to say about their experiences:
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Talking to different professionals brought in a new perspective and gave me hope for my future because I had a lot of doubts and confusion about how to approach my career after graduating this December. Talking to professionals brought me self-confidence."
Joselyn Estrada '25, business major
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Speed Networking was a great opportunity to meet as many professionals as I could to expand my professional network. It was also a great opportunity to see what kind of jobs are out there, especially in the economics, business, and finance fields. I especially enjoyed connecting with successful professionals from Lake Forest College."
Bobby McCloskey '25, finance major
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I feel like I learned the most from people I definitely didn’t expect to connect as much with, so it was really exciting to get insight from places I didn’t expect. I’m mainly interested in nonprofit work and broadcasting right now, but I really connected with one of the actors who was here; she had a lot of interesting advice about approaching your career after college."
Anna Blazkova '25, communication and area studies double major
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My biggest takeaway was to keep my options open. There are so many paths available to us, and businesses are interested in hiring passionate people who are excited to do the work."
Tyler Alloway '25, psychology major, African American studies minor
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This event taught me to keep an open mind. There are a lot of people who started off in one place and ended up in another. For example, I met someone who was going to school for music and philosophy and ended up in a computer science role, so it is just fascinating to see all the paths that people can take to get to where they want to be."
Dennis Cherepanov '25, computer science and data science double major
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It was encouraging to talk to so many people from such diverse career areas. It helped me work on my ability to talk to anyone, and learning to take something away from every conversation was very rewarding."
Angela Elze '25, history and sociology and anthropology double major
Alumni giving back
This year, out of 151 professionals who attended Speed Networking, 90 alumni returned to the College to lend their wisdom and connections to current students. This kind of support from alumni and the College's focus on career preparation contribute to Lake Forest College's strong rankings: #1 for Social Mobility by U.S. News and World Report for the second year in a row and #18 for Best Career Services by The Princeton Review (which also marks our second year in their top 20).
Learn more about how Lake Forest College supports student career success.
“In reviewing the list of organizations represented, I was overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of representation and the sheer number of enthusiastic and generous volunteers,” said Vice President for Career Advancement and Strategic Initiatives Jackie Slaats. “Speed Networking showcases the Forester Network doing what it does best—supporting students through the power of connection. The right kind of networking connects people to people, people to ideas, and people to opportunities. One conversation, one business card exchange, one shared idea can spark something profound, and tonight, we saw this in action.”
Here’s what alumni had to say about their experiences:
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I was an international student at Lake Forest College, and I remember that my job search wasn’t the most straightforward process, so I try to come back and talk to international students as much as possible to help them understand different options before they graduate."
Paulina Mwesiga '19, Financial Analyst, CIBC
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My company has found a lot of success with student athletes, and as a former Forester rugby and football player, I am aware of how big of a student athlete presence there is on our campus. Forester student athletes are a really diligent group, and I wanted to come back to my roots in this way since we are actively looking for interns year-round."
Ted Crane '20, CSCS, Illinois Bone and Joint Institute
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Lake Forest College has helped me a lot in so many different ways, so helping students grow into their careers is awesome for me. Nursing was not an option when I was a student, but I love getting to know the students who are going into nursing now."
Samantha Rau '18, BSN, RN, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital