Speedwork

Spring 2011

speedwork“What’s the difference between an introverted engineer and an extroverted engineer?” jokes Wayne Nickols ’83, MS ’92. “An introverted engineer looks at his shoes when he’s talking to you, an extroverted engineer looks at your shoes when he’s talking to you.”

Nickols, a member of the Society of Engineering Alumni (SEA) Council, figures a little levity can’t hurt loosen up the engineering students and alumni who have gathered in the Glass Pavilion on this winter evening. The students are paired with alumni at tables spread in a circuit around the room. After Nickols finishes speaking, each pair will have six minutes together before a bell signals the students to slide a space to the left.

Joking aside, Nickols and the rest of the SEA, with help from the Career Center and the Whiting School’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations, are offering an experimental antidote for the shoe-struck: a practice session for fast and effective self-promotion. “Speed networking” is based on the similarly named singles event for dating; it made its debut during Engineers Week in February.

An annual tradition for students and alumni, EWeek 2011 also included a dry pasta/marshmallows towerbuilding contest; a Women of Whiting panel on careers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields; and a memorial seminar with art installation in honor of distinguished alumnus and faculty member M. Gordon “Reds” Wolman ’49.

For student participants, the speed-networking event was a hit. At traditional networking events, says Justin Lee ’11, mechanical engineering, “you talk to two or three people and sometimes you get stuck.” The built-in flow of speed networking eases the mingling, he says.

At the end of Round 1, the atmosphere becomes frantic: People shake hands while racing to get in last words, scribbled email addresses. When no one has rotated a minute later, event leaders decide to add a “one-minute warning” bell to the choreography; by the last rounds at the end of the hour, most participants have settled into the rhythm.

Mike Brenner ’63, who helped plan the event, says he was inspired to test speed networking after the success of a student-alumni mentoring program he started about three years earlier. His goal: to help young people build the skills they need “to look for jobs and promote themselves,” he says.

In all, some 15 alumni representing as many different companies took part in the evening. Many said they’d participate again, and that they enjoyed speaking with students.