20A

1) My first connection is with Emily, who I consider an expert in my industry, marketing in the fashion and cosmetic industry. Emily, a senior that is about to graduate from UF, who is a marketing major like me and has a lot of the same extra curriculars as me. She does some graphic design stuff and also has had many well-established internships in the beauty/cosmetics industry.

2) Emily is a domain expert in my industry because she has had many internships in the beauty industry and just secured a full-time job with a beauty company. She is working for their marketing team which is exactly the kind of job I want when I graduate.

3) Emily is my friend, two grades above me, who I often go to for career advice. For the purpose of this assignment, I facetimed her to talk to her.

4) Emily gave me advice on how to navigate an internship this summer and how to spend my time bettering myself for my career over the next 2 years at UF.

5) Emily is a great person to know because she is hardworking and caring. I know she will make it far in the beauty industry and has amazing dedication and skills that I admire. She is also someone who cares about her friends and will always lend a helping hand.

1) My second connection is my friends father, Dave. Dave graduated from UF in 1980 where he then started working for a large marketing company based in Tampa, FL. He has worked for this company his whole life, but moved up the "hierarchy" (for lack of better words).

2) Dave is the expert on my market. He works for a marketing firm in Tampa. Although he is in the finance department, he sees a lot of statistical data about young to middle aged women that use beauty products.

3) I connected through Dave through the phone.  I got his number from my friend and left him a voicemail to see if we could video-conference to connect and talk about what he does for his company and the kind of market that he deals with.

4) Dave was willing to do me a favor by calling since I am friends with his daughter and had a curiosity about his business. He expects nothing in return.

5) Dave is a great person to know because he was willing to offer me insight, expecting nothing in return. I think he is at the age where he likes telling stories about his life, so talking to me about his business was fun for him

1) My last connection is my grandmother's sister who is a large investor in a makeup supplier that sells high end lipstick to retail stores. She has been involved with the beauty industry her whole life. Now that she is old she is "retired" but instead invests in beauty suppliers.

2) She is filling the supplier spot of my industry because she invests in the lipstick company.

3) She lives in Hong Kong so I WhatsApped her. I sent her a message asking her if I could ask about her business. She was happy to talk to me about it.

4) We talked on the phone for a couple hours about life and then her business. She doesn’t expect anything in return besides catching up with her more often.

5) My grandmother's sister is a very great person to look up to because she's done so many different parts of the business world. She has years of experience in different positions and she's a very wise woman.

Finally: Reflect. This experience requires you to do a little 'targeted networking.' This experience taught me to simply ask people about their background. I think people naturally like to talk about themselves and it helps to have this conversation starter. This experience was a little different than my past networking experiences because I used to be nervous to ask questions.