Michael Schultz, a senior from New Albany, Ind., said he hasn’t had a lot of networking experience.

Schultz, who plans to go into web development, attended Career Services’ Speed Networking Day on Thursday.

He said it was great for him to meet with alumni and communicate with them.

“It was good practice to get to talk to people about their experiences,” Schultz said. “Meeting with people face-to-face is always a good opportunity to get feedback with how you are communicating with them.”

This is the second time Career Services has hosted this event, Associate Director Rebecca Tinker said.

“The thing that is important is that (the alumni) are out working and can talk to the students about work ethic and conduct as well as basic questions about their job,” she said.

A handful of students participated in short rotations with the alumni present and asked them questions about the job interviewing process and their particular job.

Henderson senior Joseph Howard will graduate in May, but he said he wanted to get a jump-start with networking and gain some perspective.

“Everybody gave me a lot of insight and a lot of advice for me to use for the future,” Howard said.

Tori Henninger, assistant director for alumni programming, was one of the alumni the students could speak with. She said it was important for students to learn what life after college is like.

“The main role for this is for students to get a taste of what the real world is like,” Henninger said. “WKU does a good job of preparing students for a position, but not necessarily the what-ifs, so who better for students to talk to than alumni?”

Talking with students at the event was a good way for alumni to give back to the university, Tinker said.

“Networking is a critical part in the world of work, and WKU alumni are so good at helping students, because they remember what it was like to be in the students’ shoes,” she said.

Tinker said they will host this event every semester.

More students and alumni attend the spring networking event, because more seniors are graduating then, she said.