The University of California, San Diego has been an established University for decades and many graduates have passed through its mural halls before pursuing several careers post-graduation. But, the University knew very little about the career success of their graduates until they set up a university branded page for the citadel of knowledge a few years ago.
According to its Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations, Armin Afsahi, the University had records of 125,000 alumni, but had accurate employment information of approximately 10,000 of them. Within 3 months of connecting with Linkedln, 92,000 information of alumni surfaced. Details of their employment with blue-chip companies such as Google, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, Hewlett-Packard, Apple etc. was found on the page, and even ranked in order of the school’s top employers.
This has enabled the University career placement department to help undergraduates to seek better employment after graduation and also set up a mentoring program for them with the alumni. Additionally, social media has also become very useful in securing internships for their students.
“The old models of alumni relations don’t work,” Mr. Afsahi said and continued: “We have to be a data-driven, intelligence-oriented organization to create the engagement and value that students and alumni expect.”
Social media has changed the world and transgressed into the educational terrain, helping under-graduates with mentoring, internship and seeking better employment post-graduation.
