Student-Professional Networking and Meet Your Student Reps at IUS 2022
Contributed by: Maryam Basij and Yashwanth Nanda Kumar, IEEE UFFC-S Student Representatives
Student Professional Networking IUS 2020
The Student-Professional Networking event was organized on Wednesday, October 12, 13:00-14:00 CEST during the 2022 International Ultrasonics Symposium. This event provided student attendees with the v opportunity to meet both academic professors and industry representatives. In addition, this event was beneficial for professionals and leaders from academia and industry to meet potential prospective students/employees. Since the conference was conducted in a hybrid format this year, the event was also conducted on similar lines with Maryam moderating the in-person event and Yashwanth handling the online event simultaneously.
At the start of the event, the IEEE UFFC-S Ultrasonics Student Representatives welcomed everyone and explained how the event will be conducted. For the online event participants, were asked to add the following suffixes; either “S - ” for “Student” or “P -” for “Professional” to help identify each attendee’s role. For the in-person event, 18 round tables with a capacity of 10 were provided at the event location. Each table was assigned to one or two professionals when their names were printed and placed on the table ahead of time. Lunch boxes were provided for all in-person attendees to stimulate a friendly atmosphere between professionals and students. A list of conversation starters was also displayed on-screen to help spark ideas for discussion, including icebreakers for general introductions, conference-related discussion topics, and career-related discussion topics. A total of 180 participants took part in this event.
During the event, participants were sorted into smaller breakout rooms at random, with at least one professor or industry member in each breakout room to facilitate conversations in a more comfortable group setting. Participants were then encouraged to rotate across after every 15 minutes for a chance to meet as many leaders as possible from both academia and industry possible while allowing enough time to have substantive conversations. This random assignment of rooms/tables also allowed students to meet and speak with professionals from different fields that they may not have had a chance to meet otherwise and to talk to.
Student Professional Networking Breakout Sessions
Overall, students as well as professionals really enjoyed the opportunity to connect with each other during this event. In a post-event survey, all respondents indicated that they would like to see this type of event held at future IUS conferences. One student wrote: “It was really nice because for a Ph.D. student like me it is really important to have the possibility to talk with Professionals and know their experiences, how they reach their position, and so on“. Another student commented that “This was a fruitful networking event, especially for the last year graduate students who could seek jobs in the industry or university!” Professionals who attended this event also found the event to be fun and interesting for them.
Student Professional Networking Feedback
Thank you to everyone who participated in the IUS 2022 Student-Professional Networking event! Stay tuned for more information on new and exciting student events at IEEE IUS 2023.