We are all alumni. Although we attended different schools, colleges, and universities, we share the same alumni status. By choosing this book, I hope this means you are curious to learn about the potential of your alumni network across your professional and personal life.

Initially, I planned to write this book for final year students, recent graduates, and alumni. The Alumni Way is still primarily for you and your supporters – parents, guidance counsellors, and career advisers. However, as I began writing this book, I realized all alumni, even ones inside the institutions themselves – faculty, university administrators, senior managers, and even advancement professionals – could also benefit from ‘reimagining alumnihood’. By learning more about alumni engagement, we can all support and be savvy alumni. What would it be like if all alumni recognized the value of staying connected to their alma mater? This is my ambitious aim for this book. Let's embark on this alumni journey together.

Alumni connection is more than a stroll down memory lane. Instead, the Alumni Way is a multi-lane highway, dotted with off ramps of creative possibilities along the route. By mapping our alumni potential, we open ourselves to a new way of thinking about life after graduation. I hope this book will give you renewed faith in the power of alumni connection in our highly networked world.

It's never too early (or too late!) to be informed about the perks of our alumni status. Even students can benefit from the Alumni Way. The earlier we understand our lifelong alumni connections, the better. Whether our student experience is, or was, memorable, miserable, or forgettable, as alumni, we can start this relationship afresh. Our alumni network and our university can play a key part in our lives, for life.

It's easy to be cynical. Our university experience belongs firmly in the past, doesn't it? The call to keep in touch is vague: the alumni magazine and reunion invitations seem to hold little relevance to daily life. Drawing on the thinking from the Alumni Way, it may be worth considering or even embracing these invitations. And then there's the common complaint: the university only contacts me when they are looking for money.