{"id":9289,"date":"2011-10-27T13:27:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T13:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=9289"},"modified":"2025-01-31T10:27:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T15:27:54","slug":"the-pocket-protector-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/10\/the-pocket-protector-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pocket Protector"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Heidi S. Douglas, <\/em>hdouglas@engineer.uconn.edu<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A \u2018Stephen Hawking Moment\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s what my longtime friend, \u00fcber technical sales executive and UConn alumnus with bachelor\u2019s degrees in electrical engineering and business called it.\u00a0 It could be material for a recurring nightmare, right up there with forgetting to study for an exam and showing up for class naked.\u00a0 You walk into a room filled with strangers and an expectation that you are going to meet, talk, ask questions and exchange business cards.\u00a0 All that you can feel is sweaty palms, acid reflux and self-consciousness that everyone is pointing at you and snickering, or that they don\u2019t notice you at all, or both.\u00a0 Eventually, time passes; you get older, more experienced, gain confidence and, probably most importantly, come to terms with the realization that the situation is, and will probably forever remain, simply awkward.\u00a0 Regardless of how advanced or developed your schmoozing skills become, walking into a room filled with strangers will never feel great \u2013 a glass or two of wine may help, but that\u2019s a whole other story.\u00a0 The fact is that you just get used to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And who teaches us these skills that are arguably more important to our long term professional success than finite element analysis or thermodynamics?\u00a0 Engineering curriculum is already jam packed with courses required for graduation.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but pretty much the extent of the instruction that I received for dealing with these situations was dress appropriately, stand up straight, smile and make eye contact, firm handshake \u2026 and then, you\u2019re on your own.<\/p>\n

Okay, back to the Stephen Hawking Moment.\u00a0 My friend was invited to a small, exclusive reception for Stephen Hawking preceding a guest lecture he was giving.\u00a0 Pitiful, he declared in recounting the scene.\u00a0\u00a0 Encircled by a phalanx of speechless guests, Professor Hawking, seated in his wheel chair, looked absolutely miserable.\u00a0 What could you say?\u00a0 What do you ask him?\u00a0 So, Dr. Hawking, what\u2019s new?\u00a0 How\u2019s that unification of the General Relativity with Quantum Theory going for you?\u00a0 Have you seen any good movies lately?\u00a0\u00a0 How about Man United \u2013 what a season!\u00a0 No one knew what to say or ask, so they just stood there staring, not saying a word.\u00a0 It was a Stephen Hawking Moment.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need Stephen Hawking to have the moment.\u00a0 For the 99% (shameless reference), until you build your personal introductory phrase list and develop some devices for initiating stranger conversation, it can be very quiet, uncomfortable, and certainly, unproductive.\u00a0 The only way to learn networking skills, like anything else in life, is to practice.\u00a0 Fake it \u2018til you make it.<\/p>\n

On November 10th<\/sup>, thanks to the generosity of Goodrich Corporation and foresight of the Undergraduate Office, all undergraduate engineering students have the opportunity to learn and practice.\u00a0 A one hour professional networking skills lecture at 4 pm will be followed by a catered reception from 5-7 pm.\u00a0 If you are a business or engineering professional, please, please join us.\u00a0 We need you.\u00a0 You might meet some interesting people or old friends; heck, bring them along, and our students need to practice networking with you.\u00a0 Oh, and if you bring a pocket protector, I\u2019ll buy you a beer.<\/p>\n

RSVP at:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.engr.uconn.edu\/minical\/showevent.php?id=855<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read, let me know.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t like what you read, let me know.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A ‘Stephen Hawking Moment’ — that\u2019s what my longtime friend, über technical sales executive and UConn alumnus with bachelor\u2019s degrees in electrical engineering and business called it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":210831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-9289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 17:15:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224975,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289\/revisions\/224975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/210831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9289"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=9289"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}