Throughout this program, one of the greatest skills I’ve learned has been the art of connection-making. Although to some, this skill seems like it comes naturally, I’ve found that it can actually be trained and learned through repetitions.

When I was younger, there was a point where I was not very social and had a lot of anxiety about talking to people, but I realized that this could be overcome by being outgoing and forcing yourself to try new things. On this program, I did the same. Before we even had our first meeting, I only knew one person on the program out of the 20 or so many people. When I was in Physics class, we received an email congratulating our admission to the program. As soon as I read the email, I checked the recipients list and saw a name that said “Ben Kitchen”, which sounded familiar so I naturally asked my friend next to me: “Do you know a Ben Kitchen?”, and he went: “Yeah, he’s literally in this row with us.” From there, I made my first connection, and took my baby steps in networking from scratch. At the first program meeting, I made sure I could talk to as many people as I could and met many more people. As time progressed, I furthered my skills and started taking on more difficult tasks. For example, during the program, I made good friends with our chaperone/tour-guide Brian, just through forceful conversations until they became unforced. At company visits and programs, I started conversations with workers there, just by forcefully thinking about what they would want to talk about. At the alumni dinner, I chatted with the alumni about everything, making sure the conversation continued and that I got to understand who they were.

Building off this experience, learning to network will be extremely important during my time at Pitt, as getting to be close with my professors, TAs, or even peers will create useful resources for all of my classes and help nurture other opportunities. As I begin to take smaller sized and more advanced lessons in my Bioengineering curriculum, I’ll be seeing my professors more often and making more direct conversations with them. Going out of my way to talk with them, create good bonds and gaining their respect will always be important. Some of them may have labs that they may ask me to join, or talk positively about me to my other professors before I even take their classes. Having good connections all my peers and TAs will help me to succeed and study better in class, while also feeling comfortable to speak and engage, and show up excited to be in the classroom.  

Looking beyond the classroom, these skills are also going to be critical in my future career, especially as an engineer who would rather not be working a 9-5 at a company. As someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, which is easier said than done, connection-making is going to pave the way for me to find collaborators, potential customers or other services that may be useful for me. Creating a strong circle with people, having “that guy” for a certain area of expertise, and having overall strong support and respect from others will be a game-changer and critical for success.

In the end, this program has put me in the right direction and already created some strong connections for me, but I need to continue improving my skills and networking more if I want to get better. It’ll also be important for me to remember that making connections and keeping them are two separate things, and I have to offer them my services to make it valuable for them to help me back.