UCLA alumni contribute financially to the university, but they also donate hours of their time, providing opportunity for current students to network and meet graduates with similar academic and professional interests.
Alumni give expert advice and serve as mentors for UCLA students, said Ralph Amos, assistant vice chancellor of alumni relations. Students benefit from the knowledge alumni have gained since graduation.
“They may say certain classes are essential or give strategies for success outside of the classroom,” Amos said.
Organizations such as the UCLA Alumni Association connect students to alumni and allow students to network and receive advice about industries in which they are interested.
“We have a dedicated mentor program, through which alumni share what they’ve learned in their profession to help students,” Amos said. “It’s a beautiful thing ““ you can’t pay for that kind of advice.”
Alumni also work with the Student Alumni Association, a division of the UCLA Alumni Association, to network with students and to advise them.
Graduates return to UCLA to visit during Blue and Gold Week, act as judges during Spring Sing, and host Dinners for 12 Strangers, Florence Tseng, Dinner for 12 Strangers executive director, said.
Dinners for 12 Strangers provide opportunities for alumni to come together and network with students over food, said Amos.
“It’s an opportunity for people who do not know each other, but are often from the same department and have similar academic interests, to talk about life, scholarship and experiences,” Amos said.
Networking events like these dinners create opportunities for students that lead to internships and jobs in the future, Tseng said.
Alumni also give back through Interview with a Bruin, said Yolanda Nunn Gorman, president of the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association.
“We partner with the UCLA Career Center to connect students to graduates when they’re looking for jobs and when they want to practice interviewing for a job,” Gorman, a UCLA alumna, said.
The Alumni Association also hosts Entertainment Networking Night, during which alumni from the entertainment industry are able to connect with students.
Networking in fields like entertainment that are difficult to break into is particularly valuable, Gorman said.
Former Bruins also help to make decisions that affect current students.
“Alumni are often involved with scholarships,” Gorman said. “They interview students and help to select those who will be offered a scholarship.”
Amos said that alumni also recruit new students, sometimes from their own families.
The Alumni Association trains alumni to staff college fairs in an effort to attract new students, said Mark Davis, director of communications at the Alumni Association.
Apart from directly connecting with students, UCLA alumni simply act as upstanding citizens, Amos said.
“Alumni are ambassadors for UCLA,” he said. “People ask where our alumni went to school ““ they put the UCLA name out into the world.”
The partnership between current students and alumni works only because of the willingness of the alumni to support UCLA and their hopes to keep the community here strong, Gorman said.
“Much alumni involvement is centered on creating an atmosphere so UCLA students feel like Bruins from the moment they arrive,” she said. “So they strive to help students from the beginning to the end of their UCLA careers.”