Career Conversations with Harper Alumni helps students network and build career skills

Harper College alumni will talk leadership on October 1 as part of Career Conversations with Harper Alumni, a yearlong series designed to help students develop professional skills and connect with the alumni experience.

The first event will include lunch and a panel discussion on leadership perspectives and career growth, featuring alumni experts from diverse professions including health sciences, business, communications and HR. The event, which takes place at noon in the Wojcik Conference Center, is free and open to Harper students. Registration is required. Sign up to register for Career Conversations with Harper Alumni.

Formerly a 2-day event called Career Connections with Harper Alumni, the updated initiative includes panel discussions in the fall and spring semesters, followed by a professional leadership dinner in spring 2026.

Shannon Hynes, director of alumni and affinity groups, said the schedule has been spread out to give more students access to the events, which provide in-demand professional development and networking opportunities and allow them to hear from alumni in their own words. She said students will learn about different career paths, what it means to be a leader, unwritten professional rules and soft skills. There will also be opportunities to ask questions.

“This leadership panel will focus on how they got started, their career growth, their perspectives on being a leader, choices they made along the way – maybe successes but also failures – and on sharing advice with students on career paths and best practices for how they got to where they are in their careers,” Shannon said.

The October 1 panel will include alumni who have been in their fields for at least 15 to 20 years. In the spring, the panel will feature recent alumni who attended Harper within the past 10 years.

Shannon said Harper alumni view participating in the events as a way to give back to the Harper community.

“The number one thing I hear from alumni is ‘How can I get involved?’ So we created this program,” she said. “It might just be an hour or two of their time, but the long-term impact for our students who are sitting there listening and actively participating by asking questions lasts so long. We’ve probably had over 50 alumni participate over the past few years.”

Panelists for the upcoming event include Farah Ali, head of human resources at Cedar Electronics; Jose Macias, producing sales manager at Rate; Jennifer AK Mepham, CHSE system simulation education specialist at Advocate Health; and Sandra Torres, manager of content development for pharmacy and health care communications at Walgreens.

“We’ve assembled a diverse panel from health sciences, business, communication and HR this year, so there will be a wide variety of perspectives and hopefully takeaways for everyone, no matter their major,” Shannon said. “When you hear advice from people who have been in your shoes, it makes a huge difference.”

For more information on the series, visit the Career Conversations webpage.