TRU Alumni & Friends, in partnership with TRU’s Adventure Tourism program, held its second ever Networking 411 event that saw an engaged group of 50 students talk with 14 mentors from around the globe.
In the usual ‘Networking 411’ fashion, students moved around the room to speak with various career mentors and seek out career and life advice. In this case, all of the mentors were alumni and graduates of the Adventure Tourism program at TRU.
What was different about this event though, was that 12 of the 14 mentors were brought in via Skype. This is almost a necessity for mentors in this program area as their jobs are located across the globe in various adventure and tourism related fields. Mentors Skyped in from tourism hubs such as Revelstoke, Whistler and Canmore but there were also mentors from as far as Ecuador, Alaska, Australia, Virginia and Switzerland.
Our two face to face mentors came from Sun Peaks, a popular spot for many Tourism grads.
“We are excited that our alumni & friends can continue to give back and that we can utilize technology to access these people all over the world. This is excited for us as organizers and the students”
Prior to diving right into the networking portion of the event, students are given a preamble on how to navigate the speed dating format of this event and are also given a list of great question ideas to ask the mentors.
There is no doubt that of all the ‘Networking 411’ events run throughout the year that the Adventure Tourism event is the most wide spanning and maybe even the most exciting.
This event continues to grow and will be used as a model for other faculties who have mentors located globally.
