The Duke Alumni community is passionate, active, and generally welcomes you, as a student, to participate. When talking to alumni, the “rules” of building connection are just the same as any other area of your life: Be willing to lead with your own investment to create a mutual effort.

Relating about shared Duke experiences is a fantastic way to create connection. Do not rush through this part! This might look like:

• attentive listening and follow-up questions for their stories and memories
• sharing your own anecdotes about what life at Duke is like right now
• talking about your specialization and classes
• connecting about a favorite faculty member you both know

Here are Duke tools to connect with a group who is usually very happy to hear from you!

Attend Alumni Events
This page has a summary of upcoming events, some at Duke and many hosted by the various alumni groups around the world. For example, on the day I looked, the Duke NY group was hosting an online conversation with a Vice President for Global Franchise Planning for Nickelodeon. The Duke Black Alumni (DBA) from the Duke Atlanta chapter was hosting a virtual cooking event titled “Home for the Holidays” and Duke Richmond was hosting a virtual wine tasting.

Connect with Alumni Groups
The directory of alumni groups is also easy to use and find. You’ll find Dukies who convene by location, school, industry, affinity, and graduation date. (Be sure to look up the places you want to live, there’s likely a community there!) After exploring any online resources (many have websites, social media presence, and more!) you are encouraged to introduce yourself to group leaders as a current student who also aligns with the theme. Leaders of these groups tend to be invested and well-connected because of their role and commitment. You can share your appreciation for their efforts, and after sharing a bit about how your past and future connect to their role, ask if they have any ideas for how to get and keep connected with the group efforts and alumni members.

Use the Alumni Directory
The Duke Alumni Directory is an incredible tool to use in tandem with LinkedIn. With over 180,000 members, it should be a key element of your winter outreach effort.

Before you get started, we recommend that you watch this two minute video packed with tips for how to introduce yourself successfully.

Here are three more tips for using the tool successfully:

• The default sort order is by recent sign-in. This means your top results will generally have current information and an indicator of investment into the Duke community.
• You can email alumni from the site. While you don’t see their contact information directly, clicking the envelope icon sends your message directly to the inbox of their chosen email address. When they choose to reply, you’ll get a regular email and see their address displayed.
• Use the side filters! This is one of the killer features that beats LinkedIn because of the “at Duke” section where you can specify things like degree and participation in some of the big clubs. Like modern search fields, you can type slowly to have it autofill the best keywords.

Have fun connecting with Duke alumni, remembering that they were once in your position, too. They may be just as curious about your life and experience as you are about theirs.