Helping Students Network with Columbia Alumni

Columbia Career Connections (CCC) is an online career networking community through which undergraduates have the opportunity to make connections with alumni in a wide variety of professions, industries and locations. Columbia University is fortunate to have a vibrant alumni community and direct relationships with alumni can provide students with a distinct brand of insight into their own career search. Columbia Career Connections was launched to alumni in the Fall 2006 semester, and over 1,500 alumni from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds have registered.

University Alumni Relations has partnered with the undergraduate school alumni offices, the Center for Career Education and undergraduate student leadership to bring Columbia undergraduates from Columbia College, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of General Studies into the CCC networking community.

CCE emphasizes networking as an important aspect of career development. Networking can help students gain valuable industry insight, find contacts for informational interviews and develop a more nuanced understanding of organizations and professions. Students and alumni also have career networking opportunities, hosted by CCE, such as Networking Nights highlighting different industries and the Careers In... series, which brings alumni to campus to discuss their current work. CCC further helps students develop contacts, communicate with career professionals, and interact with alumni to encourage active career exploration.

Students

For access to CCC, undergraduate students must complete this online workshop and follow the link at the end to fill out the access form. Please note that CCC is not open to graduate students.

This online workshop will help prepare students to maximize their online networking experience and to understand proper networking etiquette.  CCE also holds other networking workshops throughout the academic year. View CCE’s Events Calendar for dates and times.

Alumni

In CCC, alumni are able to develop profiles on their current and past work experience highlighting the evolution of how they were able to achieve their current position. Each profile also may contain information on the industry, organization and type of work the alumnus/a is engaged in. Alumni also have the option of identifying networking preferences based on common interests and affinity groups. While students will not create profiles, they will be able to search profiles by a variety of criteria and using blind email functionality, contact directly those alumni who have expressed a preference to network with students.

Alumni can register online here.  If you have any questions please send an e-mail to careerconnections@columbia.edu.