<p>umich, alums help, but they aren’t ANYWHERE as effective as family. Alums will pass a resume and, if they have an opening in their own department, will go out of their way to hire, but in general, we each have very limited number of people we can place and will do so judiciously (i.e., our own relatives and kids of important people that we may ask them for a favor later on). Trust me, alumni networks are great, but they are not as effective relatives.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t have family connections so how can I best use Michigan’s Alumni network?</p>
<p>Attend as many alumni events as possible, reach out to alums (don’t neglect alums you knew that were a year or two older than you and recently joined the workforce) via email, prepare a good CV, go to information sessions as those are often hosted by alums returning on campus.</p>
<p>I participated in a competition hosted by the alumni center and met a lot of alumni that way that were willing to help me out or hook me up with people they knew in my field. From what I can tell that seems like a really valuable resource that is fairly easy to tap into.</p>
<p>Thanks Alexandre.</p>
<p>As for contacting via email, I assume it should be under some premise? Should I have met them before? I can’t just contact people with “help me” so what should I do?</p>
<p>It’s pretty funny to see people talking about having complete idiots in their classes. I guess there aren’t any Shanghai Joint Institute people in the IOE program. In EE they wait and seem to take up half of the seats in each class, ready to destroy any curve in sight.</p>
<p>This is why America is in decline. They is no more meritocracy anymore for consideration to top jobs or to top universities. If America is to retain its top position in the world, lets stop all these legacy, family favoratism, nepotism etc.</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn’t fare much better in a meritocracy either. But people aren’t passing down CEO positions to their kids, they’re just opening a few doors to help them get started. They still have to be able.</p>
<p>One can’t be a moron and land a job thanks to dady, unless dady is the CEO! It is not enough to have connections, the student has to be good. Like I said, a student shpuld have a good GPA at a top university to benefit from their network. And I see nothing wrong with that. IBanking is definitely an industry that relies heavily on relationships and having a strong network is a big plus.</p>
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<p>making<em>a</em>point, I had to address your statement because it contains many assumptions about meritocracy and opportunity in American society. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>You assume that people in the United States are born with the same opportunities to resources and mobility. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Some children are born into a lifestyle of inheritance and wealth. However, there are other children who are born and raised in impoverished conditions in this country. How could you say they can compete at the same level as someone born in a more financially stable family? </p></li>
<li><p>Inheritance provides numerous benefits such as high standards of living, access to cash and property, insulation from downward mobility, better health care and ability to live healthier lives, access to educational opportunities and other opportunities to acquire personal merit (social capital, connections). Heck, even physical attraction (beauty, height, weight) is another nonmerit factor because these people tend to receive more attention, more recognition for their performance, and more promotions over time.</p></li>
<li><p>Educational opportunity is also not equally distributed in the American population. The quality of the schools varies according to where someone lives, and depends on family resources and race/ethnicity. There is numerous published literature that state poor people tend to get poor educations, etc. Parents who can enroll their children into the “best schools” want to ensure their children have access to selective colleges and universities, which can provide numerous monetary and nonmonetary benefits. It is easy for CC high school students to assume that their peers had similar upbringings because they tend to come from stable and homogenous (middle class) backgrounds. </p></li>
<li><p>There is still the lingering effect of racial segregation and discrimination in this country. For example, it has only been since the 1970s and 1980s that African Americans could integrate most institutions (educational, employment, municipal, social). Despite higher homeownership and educational attainment levels, the black middle class is still financially less stable than the white middle class. Now, there is the threat of downward mobility. This is especially true where certain sectors (government, automotive, manufacturing) continue to shrink and employ a large proportion of African Americans.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>When American people think about hunger, they generally assume povety in the developing world. We have families going hungry in our own backyard. This is from the Detroit News (12/11/09):
It is naive to think that everyone operates on a level playing field. This country has never really practiced true meritocracy. I listed the non-merit factors (especially inheritance). In the race to get ahead, the effects of inheritance and wealth come first and merit comes second, not the other way around.</p>
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<p>Does this mean that you would have gotten the offer even if u were
- getting 2.0 GPA?
- not going to UM, but a Podunk U?
- not going to a U at all?</p>
<p>">My dad made a phone call. Neither GPA nor classes was even asked.</p>
<p>Does this mean that you would have gotten the offer even if u were
- getting 2.0 GPA?
- not going to UM, but a Podunk U?
- not going to a U at all?"</p>
<p>Don’t know. Never was in this situation.</p>