Benefits of the Alumni Network

The Princeton Review ranked St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, Number two for best alumni networks among private schools in 2025. Yet, students are still finding it difficult to land internships. However, is that really what the alumni network is for? 

Students are growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of responses from internship opportunities, especially those connected to SLU. Kelsey O’Brien ’26 was hoping to obtain an internship through networking. “I’ve reached out to a lot of alumni, and I’ve heard back from a few, but not as many as I was expecting,” O’Brien said. 

The Center for Career Excellence is a resource for students to search for jobs and internships and connect with SLU alumni. The center offers services such as resume read-overs, alumni events and directions for navigating job boards. “One girl from the Career Center sent an email to an alum for me,” O’Brien said. “I then reached out to her, and she didn’t answer me until the Career Center sent out another email for me.” 

The Career Center has student career coaches who help other students who are looking to improve their resumes and cover letters. Shelby Oken ’26, a student at SLU and a career coach at the Career Center, said she believes students sometimes misunderstand the purpose of the alumni network. “I think there’s a lot more than the first interaction [with alumni] that people don’t understand,” Oken said. “I think people think, ‘oh, the Career Center has this strong alumni network. I’m going to meet with someone and then I’ll get an opportunity’ when that’s not necessarily the case.” 

The alumni network is not just intended to help students find internships but also to provide opportunities for networking and learning from those in professional fields. “There’s this program called the LINC mentor program when a student applies and is assigned to an alum to work with once a month for networking, advice and overall career development,” Oken said. “The Career Center also has a lot of opportunities for alums to come in. They just hosted the Women’s Summit, which was a great opportunity to talk to alums in different fields.” 

The Career Center cannot promise that connecting with an alum will lead to an internship or job opportunity, but they state that it will develop students’ professional skills. “Can you turn into leads on internships and jobs? For sure, there’s no guarantee in terms of that program producing that as an outcome, but it definitely is really helpful in terms of professional development,” said Beth Larrabee, associate director of programming in the Career Center. 

Students should not have high expectations when they reach out to alumni, but sometimes, they can be pleasantly surprised. “We certainly have had students who have shadowed our alums in their place of work. We have had, you know, students end up with internships after as well,” said Larrabee. “Again, no guarantee that is going to happen, but it does.” 

Additionally, the Career Center does try to track the job placements of recent SLU graduates to build the alumni network. “I work on the St. Lawrence Handshake, and the school has a spreadsheet of all recent and graduating alums’ jobs so that they can put them into the database and label them as SLU-connected internships or jobs,” said Molly Gesner ’26, an employee engagement intern at the Career Center. 

Overall, SLU’s alumni network is large and strong, but should not be seen as a guaranteed way to an internship. Conversely, the network is a tool that, when used correctly, should be utilized to develop a student’s network and professional growth.