If you talk to people who walked out of college to join the working class and ask them what they would do if they could turn back the hand of time, I am sure a lot of their answers will touch on relationships.
Because, as it often turns out, you really do not know what your colleagues are growing up into and graduating to become. And by the time you know, you might have so overly treated these colleagues with so much contempt and sometimes even obvious disrespect that connecting again is made as difficult as having dinner with the killer of your daughter.
Peer networking is simply building horizontal relationships with people of your kind and with whom you share demographic and, to a large extent, psychographic identity. This identity similarity usually enhances the prospect for interconnectivity and eases the process of relationship building.
If you are currently in college working at a degree or a diploma, the probability that you have just shaken hands with the one millionth person is high, and almost absolute if you happen to be the extroverted type. Even if you are not the hyper extroverted, at least you would have met and briefly interacted with some half a million people.
A lot of youths find networking beyond their comfort zone vexing. They prefer to hang out with the few friends and relations besides whom they are sure some unexpected, irritating situations may not arise. And even if such circumstances ever arise, they are sure they can deal with them because they know the peer very well. Unless you dare yourself beyond your so-called comfort zone, your wealth of network will be miserably small and as your contacts shrink, so is your social capital and ultimately, the chances that you will leverage on them.
Some of the venues with the enormous potential for networking include the churches/mosques, educational institutions, social clubs, ethnic/tribal associations, etc.
Exploit the churches and mosques
Churches with futuristic ambitions are currently sinking colossal amounts of resources in the attraction and retention of youths. To convert the church’s vision into concrete work, these religious institutions have set up youth wings in the mainstream church. For large churches that have a national character and with branches across the entire nation, these youth wings usually comprise young people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Such associations tend to be multicultural in nature, rich in the diversity of experiences and exposures and provide an ideal venue for healthy social interaction.
Central mosques are great places for peer networking. Wherever you say your Jumah prayers should be ideal for networking. When prayers end, a few minutes is often reserved for friendly, warm handshakes. Opportunities such as these are ideal for networking with people of your kind.
A number of such mosques have youth wings that come under diverse names but with a unifying youth theme. Membership of groups like these opens up new opportunities for networking for the beneficiary youth.
Networking with these religious communities of young, almost demographically identical youths often furnishes the subject with a huge wealth of resources with present and future inestimable values. The point is that if you are, for instance a member of the Central Gospel Church branch at Ajirigano in East Legon (Yahwe Temple), you are immediately networked to the branch’s scores of youths and potentially networked to the ever growing numbers of youths in other branches across Accra and other regions.
In the case of CGC, as Otabel’s voice continues to rise above all the others in the Christian ministry industry and progressively charts a modern and ever reassuring route that appeals to the youth, hundreds will be seeking membership with a branch near them. It will not be long before you become a potential network to some one million other ambitious youths across the entire length and breadth of your country.
Schools
You need to go beyond your faculty and department to reach out to youths in other disciplines in your college. If you consider your department as a set, you will soon find your set intersecting with other faculties and departments in other areas in the university setup. At the halls of residence, at cafeterias, at the lecture theatres (for subjects that are common to all regardless of specialisation), you will find students from practically all walks of life assembling for a common purpose. Such places create fertile socialisation centres and offer the students the opportunity to network with other peers.