Alumni Chapters: Connect, Network, Make Friends, and Prosper

There’s a time and a place for everything, it’s called college.  And the memories you take away from college should last a lifetime.  With a growing number of college graduates in the population, Alumni connections are now more important than ever.  Yet after graduation, most people get a new job, move away, get new friends, and lose touch with their University.  Since college is the time where a majority of people discover who they are and what they want to be, it is vital to remember the University from which you came.  Here are a few examples of why it is so important to maintain that bond and live on as a legacy.First I will quickly cover how Alumni Associations are typically designed.  There will be a main Alumni office on campus.  There is a board of directors who manages things like newsletters, sponsors, local activities, and scholarships.  They will also have a hand in maintaining a number of Alumni chapters across the nation.  The Alumni Chapters are a smaller version of the Alumni’s main office, just with much less overhead to operate under.  Every Alumni chapter will have a Board of Directors who will focus on local fundraising events.  These events can be anything from football watch parties and happy hour meets to a day on the golf course or a day at the beach.  Chapters will even get together sometimes for a little friendly competition.  The fundraising is for several things, mainly to put up as scholarship money, but also to help reduce the cost of certain events.So why should you contact your local alumni chapter?  For every good reason in the last paragraph!  The events I gave as example above are actual events from my Alumni Chapter in San Diego.  On the calendar this year is the Temecula Wine Tour, a Day at the Padres, Day at the Races, a Big 12 Alumni Golf Tournament, BBQ at the Beach and more!  In a nut shell, you would get to go out, meet cool people, and have a great time at any of pre-planned events you want to go to.  You can network within the Alumni group and find new friends, perhaps old friends, job opportunities, and maybe even that special someone.  So you get to do all this cool local stuff and by participating in the chapter, you are helping to give a current student some scholarship money that is desperately needed for books and beer… not necessarily in that order, though.  Best of all, it’s free to participate in most Alumni chapters.  So what do you have to lose?  Do a Google search for your local Alumni chapter and drop them an email, or call the main Alumni office and ask for the local chapter’s contact information.  If you feel motivated and you ask real nice, you might even get to be a member on the Board of Directors, which means you would get to help plan and organize all the events for the year!  It is extra work, in fact it can be a lot of work, but it does have its rewards too.Resources:Click on these links for more information about the University of Colorado Alumni Group, including what’s on their Calendar and Bulletin Board.