Professional Networks Are Essential

This semester more than others, I have been stressing to my students the importance of building professional networks in addition to social networks while in university.  Websites like Facebook allow us to expand our social networks and stay in contact with people we might not otherwise communicate with due to distance or we simply lack a connection that limits us to being just "Facebook friends" and not close friends.  Professional networks can be similar to "Facebook friends" in this sense but the key is that if you contact them out of the blue, they know who you are and are willing to help you out.

This week we discussed the CO2 Management Center at KAIST on the Around the Carillon podcast and, honestly, I had nothing to contribute due to my lack of knowledge in that field.  I do, however, know a foreign professor at KAIST who works in the EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability) Department.  He and I aren't close.  We don't meet for lunch or connect on any of the social networks but we always say hello when we bump into each other on campus and sometimes stop for a minute to chat.  I called him first to ask for advice on who to talk to.  He seemed to know who I was when I identified myself on the phone and gave some good suggestions including speaking to another professor who I had met one or twice.  I then called the second professor and he took fifteen minutes out of his busy schedule to give me a short introduction to his research at the center.  It was very educational and much appreciated.  I have to assume he was so open and helpful because we had met before and he remembered me, but maybe he's just a super-friendly guy.  I hope I can be this useful to others in the future.

This is yet another example of advice that I give my students that rings true in my own life.  I'm grateful to have a network of English teaching professionals that I can go to for advice but also a network inside my school of people who I can call and ask a favor of.  It's never too late to expand our own professional networks but as teachers I believe it is essential to start our students down the path to good habits as early as possible.  It's not always what you know but who you know that can help you become successful.  Great advice to share as well as heed.