Recently, Connect Me held a networking workshop, the second event of their Professional Development Workshop series. I spoke with Aarav Shah and Diksha Lal, Connect Me executive team members and the organizers of the event, about their overall experiences.
When asked about the planning of the workshop, Shah had this to say about the process:
“For planning the workshop, we had to communicate and coordinate with our guest speaker [Camille Johnson] about the information we’d like to cover. We also talked about the structure of the workshop, what our visions for it would be, and made sure that aligned.”
Lal also mentioned that the workshops are heavily tailored towards high schoolers and young adults looking to build their professional profiles and skills to secure jobs, internships, and more.
“Aarav and I look at the workshops through a high school student’s perspective. A lot of the current webinars Connect Me hosts are targeted to high schoolers who are searching for advice with college applications, mental health, etc. We wanted to branch out and reach students who are looking further than that to start developing their professional lives early. From there, we dig deeper and identify what kinds of workshops those students may want to attend.”
Besides this, I asked about their favorite parts of the experience and any challenges they encountered while planning or hosting the event, to which they had different responses.
“My favorite part of hosting it is listening to the guest speakers. They do an amazing job and are so knowledgeable about the subject. The most difficult part is the coordination, which can be challenging sometimes”, said Shah.
“My favorite part of the workshop was how much it felt like a close-knit community through the interactive segments. One of the activities we did was writing up elevator pitches and reading them out loud to everyone. I got to learn a lot about people in our Connect Me team, and it made me feel closer to everyone. The most difficult part was probably finding a time that worked with all of our schedules”, said Lal.
Overall, these workshops are very beneficial as they provide attendees with valuable information that sets them up for success in their future endeavors. Attending these workshops is highly encouraged, so be on the lookout for the next one!
Author: Natalia Okitukunda, Media Department Member
