Hanna Stokes

Alumni panel reflection

I attended the alumni panel on the Friday of homecoming week which allowed me to gain
some insight from the four speakers who were on the panel. The speakers were Nia, Vince, Ken,
and Bill. All four speakers had a lot of good advice to give but I found that Vince in particular
said a lot of things that really stuck with me. For example, Vince was really honest with us when
he was asking why he chose marketing as his major, he said that he wanted to make a lot of
money and he thought he could do that through marketing or sales. A lot of people have that
mind set when it comes to jobs but I don’t think everyone can admit that is one of their reasons
for choosing their career because people don’t like to be judged for that reason. I really
appreciated the fact that Vince really wanted to help all of us as well, he provided all of us with a
handout with his top fourteen success characteristics of Duhawks. We also went through all of
those fourteen on the list and at the bottom he provided us all with his email as well and really
encouraged all of us to reach out to him if we ever need help and to especially add him on
LinkedIn because that is such a huge platform for job searching and getting help from former
Duhawks. I personally added him on LinkedIn after that panel because I really felt like he was
genuine when he said to add him and that he wants to help as many Duhawks as he can. Along
with Vince’s advice that he gave all of us, the other three panelist kind of piggybacked off of
each other’s thoughts when it came to advice such as save money, network like crazy, and never
quit. Nia gave some good advice about being out in the real world at her first job and how she
failed multiple times before she got a sale and she realized after the failed some many times, it
made that one sale that she got even more rewarding because it was all worth it. Ken talked
about how things are going to be changing at your job constantly and you need to be adaptable
and change with those things or people at your job and to keep a positive outlook on things no
matter how tough it can get at times. Bill also expanded on those thoughts by adding some
advice about networking, he mentioned that jobs don’t necessarily have to have something on a
website to be hiring, if there is a company you want to work at and you’re interested in, he told
us to send them an email with our resume and just reach out and see if they’re accepting
applications because it’s always worth a shot. Overall, all of the advice the four panelist spoke
about really resonated with me because I am a senior that is going to be going out into the real
world soon to find a my first “real” job so I appreciated every piece of advice I was given from
them.