As I mentioned last week, I’m a huge dork when it comes to the tech scene in Los Angeles and Pasadena.  You can find me driving to every event I can find in the city, even though that sometimes means up to two and a half hours of sitting in the car (welcome to LA, everything you’ve heard about rush hour and gridlock is 100% true).  Now, if you’re looking for how to find these events, I’ve got a lovely little post written up here, and you can read about the time Scripps Women in Technology and Innovate @ Scripps took a field trip to one here, but this particular blog is not about events themselves, but rather about what makes you special at mixers.

Mixers love Scrippsies!

When I first started attending mixers, it was the summer between sophomore and junior year.  I was only 20 years old, and had no idea what I was doing in these seemingly uber professional business spaces.  Everyone around me would talk about current jobs, services they offered, projects they were working on, and I’d stand around mute with nothing to add.  People seemed to be trying to find someone else who shared their interests or had connections they needed, and as a student I had no network to speak of, nor skills to share.  My status as a student made me feel useless, but what I didn’t realize was it also gave me an advantage.  Although I was lacking in things to give, I was also lacking in ulterior motives.  The instant I said I was a student, anyone I talked to knew I had nothing to sell.  It was great watching them drop their guard as they spoke passionately about their interests, when they realized you didn’t want anything except to listen and learn.

We have only a few short years to use this status to our advantage (maybe more if you go to grad school), so I recommend starting as young as possible.  The most important lesson I learned is that as a student at a mixer, people honestly want to help.  They want to tell you about how to find interesting events, about their work, about internships at their companies. They don’t mind that you don’t know anything, they can remember their own innocence as students, and want to teach you about their own lives.  There will occasionally be people who brush you off (you can see it in their eyes when they dismiss you as useless to them), but by and large the world is full of people who just want to share their own knowledge with you.  Sometimes a mixer can teach you more than any classroom, and following up with those people can build you a better network than you ever imagined.  So go out there and flaunt that student status, you’d be surprised at the knowledge you can gain just by admitting your own ignorance.