I love my AirPods, but now, I think I’ll start loving them more when they die, especially in public spaces.
This past weekend, I was stuck in the airport with one charger and two almost-dying devices: my phone and my AirPods. Unfortunately, I made the wise decision to sacrifice Daniel Caesar blessing my ears and found an outlet to charge my phone. With my only effective way of escaping reality out the window, I was exposed to the conversations happening between the people of the D19 gate on route to Las Vegas, Nevada (my hometown). Oddly enough, there were a lot of solo travelers like me. Initially assuming the awkward silence I would have to bear, what struck me as a surprise was seeing just how many people started speaking to complete strangers, ones they probably would never speak to or see again. And they weren’t just speaking. They were sharing stories, personal and private ones that I would never be caught telling on a whim.
I learned many things: a woman’s ongoing battle for custody of her child, a man’s newfound hobby of photography (and an expensive Nikon camera purchase to go with it), and another man’s intricate gambling itinerary. Some conversations were so juicy that I was trying really hard not to ask questions myself.
THE LESSON I LEARNED
However, what I got the most out of this one and a half hour of pure eavesdropping was seeing the power of small talk, and not just forced, motive-driven small talk, but natural small talk from people who really had no objective going into it but to pass the time.
In a generation where we look to our phones as a safe haven to generally avoid conversing, it was refreshing to see these strangers being brought together by nothing other than one common flight.
WHAT WE CAN ALL TAKE AWAY AS STUDENTS
At UVA, we are offered a plethora of resources for building connections: Virginia Alumni Mentoring, job/internship Fairs, and Handshake. The list goes on. It can be easy to fall under the impression that all the “networking” is being done for you; all you have to do is participate in it, and the connections are made. The hard truth is that this is not the case.
From the lens of a student who is always told to go out and “network,” I realized that these “random” conversations are the purest way, yet also the way we have made the habit of overlooking the most.
This is especially true for avid haters of awkward silence and forced conversations like me, who might feel that reaching out to people on LinkedIn or even going to office hours feels just so artificial.
I am stepping down from this fixed belief of mine. I realized and am urging more students to realize that our outlook should change. We need to stop viewing these conversations as transactional and more as a way to pass the time, simply being social. Alumni and professors are people, not goldmines to be extracted, and they appreciate being spoken to as such, just like strangers at the airport. After all, I don’t think any of the strangers I was surrounded by in the airport woke up and told themselves, “Today is the day I make two new connections, and one of them will secure me an internship” (that would be painfully weird). It might seem self-explanatory and obvious to say, but I have noticed so many people forget this after entering a hyper-competitive environment such as UVA. Actually, this mentality continues to breed the hyper-competitive environment at UVA even more.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think we, as students, should continue to take advantage of our school’s connections and resources. However, what I will personally be doing more of (and recommend others to as well) is the simple act of taking my AirPods off, listening, and starting to ask, “So, how are you doing today?” There is a chance I will get looked at weirdly, but there is also a chance I will make a new friend. I think what matters most is pushing myself out of my comfort zone and realizing that a connection can land, but the conversation is what matters the most. I think once we accept that we will get something out of these conversations only sometimes, then our networking will flow more smoothly, feel less painful, and work to benefit us in the long run.