Merrimack alumni enjoy coming back to campus to share their experiences and knowledge with students, said Samantha McGurgan, an O’Brien Center career advisor for the School of Nursing and Health Sciences. Over the course of two hours, students moved from one table to another for 15-minute conversations with the professionals.
“It’s like speed-dating for networking,” said Emily Gehrdes, the creative specialist in the O’Brien Center for Career Development, who coordinated the event. “It’s speed networking.”
Olivia Bistany ’21, a health science major from Amesbury, Massachusetts is considering a career as either a physician’s assistant or a dentist. The networking opportunity provided an important cache of information to use toward making a decision on her career path, she said.
“The alumni discussed how their experiences at Merrimack College helped them reach this point in their careers and offered insights into how they discovered what they wanted to do,” McGurgan said.
The professionals who met with students included Ata; Chris Perry ’82, owner of Velocity Sports Performance of Norwood, Massachusetts; Heather Hanjack ’07, head athletic trainer for Merrimack College; Matt Lovett ’06, educator at Pentucket Regional High School, in West Newbury, Massachusetts; James Ryan, director of organizational support and training at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center; and Corey Hamel, director of sports performance at Drive Custom Fit in Salem, New Hampshire.
“It was great to give back to the students, to share my experiences here and hear their experiences,” said Dr. Elie Ata ’12, of Greater Lawrence Family Health Center and Lawrence General Hospital. “The student body here are amazing.”
