During the summer, the Career Center and the Office of Alumni Affairs unveiled DukeConnect-a program designed to facilitate student-alumni networking and aid students in finding career information.
At dukeconnect.com, students can create a profile that plugs them into a network of alumni that they can contact individually for more information about specific careers, companies and industries.
Profiles of alumni include specific areas of expertise along with education and employment histories.
"You look at alumni profiles and you can search by major and what company they work for, but also more specifically by where they live, their fraternity affiliations and their student organization affiliations," explained sophomore Tim Gu, a member of Engineering Student Government, which was also involved in the development of the program.
Unlike other websites primarily focused on searching for jobs, DukeConnect is designed instead for students who want to learn about certain careers from an insider perspective and find information that cannot be found through a Google search, Gu said.
The network also enables alumni to stay in touch with each other and helps them feel more a part of Duke even after they have graduated, Gu said.
"The Duke experience is unique and very special, so there's an instant connection, and I feel more comfortable about making Duke contacts than any others just because of that familiarity," Ray Eddy, Trinity '92, wrote in an e-mail. "That's also why it's great to be listed as a resource, because I get to share that Duke bonding with a younger 'me.'"
The idea for DukeConnect evolved from a previous networking database called DukeSource. Although similar to DukeConnect, many said they thought DukeSource was clumsy, inefficient and unpopular, said George Dorfman, associate director for alumni affairs.
"[DukeSource] didn't talk to the main database, so the contact information wasn't up to date, it was hard for the alumni in the database to update their information, and there was no one to really manage it," Dorfman said. "The idea was good, but the execution was poor."
Following the poor reception of DukeSource, DukeConnect was created in an attempt to consolidate networking tools and career information sources.
The original version of DukeConnect got off to a shaky start because of similar problems to those in DukeSource, but the second version was launched in July and has already received high praise.
"For the most part, alumni have been very responsive and very open to speaking with me," ESG President Andrew Longenecker, a senior, wrote in an e-mail. "From my discussions with Duke alumni, I have been able to discern what I want out of a career, and what might be the best fit for me, much more quickly than I could have otherwise. My alumni contacts have been invaluable to my career search."
Those involved in the launching of DukeConnect said they all recognize the importance of networking and realize that an education goes beyond the classroom.
"It's not what you know, it's who you know," Gu said. "When you come to Duke, you get connected into the system. And we're going to make sure you take full advantage of that."
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