Grace Cavanaugh, Staff Writer~
Hornet-to-Hornet will be held on Friday, October 19, during the University of Lynchburg’s Homecoming. Hornet-to-Hornet allows alumni returning to host panels in for many majors and minors around campus. In an email from Beverly Reid, an Executive Director in Career Development, she stated, “Ever wondered what alumni have gone on to do after graduation in a particular major? Ever wondered how they got there? Would you like to hear their stories and then network with them assisted by faculty and staff?”
According to Reid, there will be approximately 75 speakers from a variety of panels. The majors included are: Math, Psychology, Biology and Biomend, Environmental Science and Chemistry, Humanities, Nursing, Theater, Music, and many more. Each panel will be located in a specific place listed in the email sent on October 4, 2018, and go from 3:00-4:00 P.M.
Reid says that she expects roughly 300 students to attend the Hornet-to-Hornet event, saying, “It was 334 students last year, so I would guess probably around that same number because every year that we’ve done this, and this is the 6th year, we’ve had about 500 people there in total, and that includes the alumni speakers, the faculty and staff, and the students. So, to have 330-some students show up on a Friday afternoon at 3 o’clock is pretty amazing, and it’s been like that every year that we’ve done it.”
Reid continued, saying, “The main goal for underclassman is to hear, and for upperclassmen too, is to hear what you can do with that major; so, like, if you come to the Communications panel and there’s 7 alumni there, they’re all doing something completely different. It just shows you everything you can do in a particular major. We’re a liberal arts school, it’s a very broad background, so for majors you don’t tend to have, like, oh, everybody’s doing this, even for something like nursing.”
Upperclassmen are encouraged to attend the event as well. “For the upperclassmen, I think one of the best things, tools, that happens is the networking that goes on afterwards because you kind of hear what somebody’s doing and then you’re like, “wow, I would really like to meet them,” and so there’s a Networking Reception event that follows immediately and faculty are there and they can introduce you to the speakers because…they’re former students,” said Reid. The Networking Reception will run from 4-5pm in the same location as the panels.
If you happen to miss the Hornet-to-Hornet event, Reid said that other opportunities are available, including Faculty and Alumni dinner. According to Reid, “Depending on whether the Academic Achievement Center decides to do it, in the past they’ve had Faculty and Alumni dinners, and generally it’s, like, once a month they’ll have a major, like Biology, and they’ll have some alumni come and they’ll talk about what they do around dinner, so sometimes that happens in the Spring to balance this event [Hornet-to-Hornet].”
Hornet-to-Hornet also counts as a Passport Event.