There may come a time in your academic career where knowing people outside your immediate discipline can open doors for employment, research or just opportunities to engage with new and interesting perspectives. I’ve compiled 3 tips to make it easy to begin networking outside of your discipline.
Tip #1: Get Engaged with a New Campus Community. Here at UC Irvine there are several multicultural, sports, professional and volunteer clubs that are not centered around a specific discipline. Find a topic or group that interests you and join! You never know who you will meet and you might just learn that you have additional friends in common. You can visit the Office of Campus Organizations website for a list of organizations on campus: http://campusorgs.uci.edu/search/searchresults.php .
Tip #2: Attend conference sessions that are outside of your discipline. Many times when we attend conferences, we only visit the talks and poster sessions in the fields that we work in. Although this is an efficient way to network within your discipline, it can also become a missed opportunity to engage with new people. So mix it up! Before the conference when you plan which sessions you will attend, also pick one or two that are outside of your work, or that deal with different concepts in your field. For example, much of my public health research relates to sociology so I try to attend sessions that have a more theoretical basis as well as those that are within my research area. That way, I get the added bonus of broadening my own knowledge!
Tip #3: Share Your Research Outside of Your Discipline. This may seem counter intuitive, but often times our research is relevant to others outside of our immediate discipline and we just never knew. You may be using a particular methodology that is used in other fields of research so sharing your work with these fields (or asking them about their research) is a great way to meet people outside of your field. Find literature that has been published about your research topic or methodologies and reach out to the authors via email. It’s a great way to establish rapport and set a foundation for future research collaborations. Maybe one day you’ll meet in person at a conference!