On April 4 2022, Penn State Global Alumni Engagement hosted our sixth biweekly meeting in Spring 2022. The purposes of the meeting were to continue our group presentations (led by Group 5), discuss the upcoming SAGA Award Ceremony, and celebrate SAGAs birthday for April. The meeting was held at Room 410 Boucke Building from 4.30p.m. to 6.00p.m. and 19 members were present.
The meeting began with an ice-breaker activity led by Afiqah and Alisia. Each member was asked to share the national animals of their country. Nirmit and Olusegun volunteered to share theirs and we all had a good laugh listening to how funny they described the animals.
We later moved on to our second agenda which is the panel session to the Top 5 SAGA members who were able to reach out to their alumni the most. Panelists include Yucheng, Segun, Yifan, Asma and Eunha. We then began a brief session for them to share their advices and tips on how they were able to reach out to their alumni. Some of the experiences shared were as below:
“If you’re shy, I think the best way to reach out to alumni is through text. You can delay the Zoom interview until you get comfortable enough to talk with them. ”
-Yucheng-
“I usually reach out to people I don’t know through LinkedIn. For me, it’s easier since they don’t know me.”
-Asma-
Afiqah concluded the discussion by mentioning how by having a strong LinkedIn profile can actually make reaching out to alumni a whole lot easier. People would trust you more if they can read some of your background information. This would also make them more comfortable in sharing their experiences and advice.
Our discussion was followed by cultural presentation by Group 5(represented by Youngsuk, Asma, Afiqah, Beige and Yifan). They did an excellent job in sharing superstitions in different countries which had led to interesting discussions among the present SAGA members. The presentation enhances our intercultural learning to facilitate SAGA’s connections with our global alumni and friends.
The next agenda of the meeting was for the SAGA updates. Afiqah reminded all SAGA members to submit their video competition submission at least a week before the Award Ceremony. Alisia then reminded each group to send her the alumni contact information so that they can be featured on the Global Alumni Spotlight. Dr. Anna then continued the meeting by reminding SAGAs to register for the upcoming award ceremony. She later proceeded to give a brief outline for the ceremony.
Right after we finished our formal discussion, Dr. Anna asked Meghan Cassidy, the new global alumni admin, to introduce herself. We all welcomed her warmly. In celebrating April birthdays, Meghan led the Happy Birthday song in Korean for our April birthday SAGA members, Youngsuk. Dr. Anna also encouraged everyone to sing-along with her in Mandarin version to celebrate Beibei’s birthday. We all ended the celebration with a big round of applause.
Dr. Anna then continued by reminding everyone of the important dates and emphasized the importance of SAGA’s end-of-year feedback which will take place at our last meeting on April 18.
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- Biweekly meetings
- Next Meeting: Monday, April 18, 2022, 4.30-6.00pm (Group 4 & 5 will present)
- SAGA Award Ceremony
- Thursday, April 28, 11.30am-1.30pm in HUB Heritage Hall
- Biweekly meetings
Before we ended our meeting, Segun led our “Expand Horizons” motto cheers. We then ate the provided dinner from Domino’s and enjoyed banana bread. It was a wonderful, productive meeting.
Expand Horizons!
Author: Afiqah Razak