Okay, I admit that “Let’s do some professional networking!”
is definitely not your first thought when you land in a foreign country for a
semester. But if you want to go beyond the tourist attractions and actually
dive into a new culture, meeting professionals who work in your field is a
great way to do it.
It’s not that hard to do, either. In one night during my
second week in London, I met some technical advisors from Deloitte, the
employees of a product design firm, and the directors of a London nonprofit. We
worked together to come up with ideas to increase engagement in a London
homeless shelter.
Oh, and there was free pizza and drinks.
We were at an event called “Experiment Studio,” a monthly
event where people interested in design, experimenting, and problem solving
come together to experiment with ideas for products, services, and business
design. Events like these are called “meetups.” They’re a big deal in tech, but
there are also meetups for artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and more. Not all
of them are business-y, either. Want to go play badminton? Meet fellow mountain
bikers? Join a book club? There’s a meetup for that.
The go-to place for finding meetups is meetup.com.
It’s free to join, free to browse, and most meetups are free to attend. When
you sign up, you can join groups that look interesting to you and get an email
when a group schedules a meetup. You’re bound to find a meetup that fits
you—I’m writing this on a Wednesday in March and I counted over 220 events
happening around London today.
Meetups are a great place to network, meet new people, hear
talks from professionals, and learn new skills. And even if you’re not looking
to network, you can always look for the ones with free food.
