Taking the Work Out of Networking: How to Enjoy Connecting with Strangers

Event location: 365 Haecker Hall

Boxed lunches will be provided

We have all had feelings of fear, potential failure and even possible catastrophe when talking with strangers and even people we think we know. This interactive workshop will use discussion, exercises and challenges to address these concerns, gently pushing you to deeper levels of connection with others especially in professional contexts such as interviews, networking events, and even that possibly awkward thirty seconds in an elevator that could just as well be transformative.

Brian Sostek, Teaching Specialist, University of Minnesota, will be this event's special guest.

Brian Sostek, is an award-winning writer, choreographer, director and performer who brings the best practices of the performing arts world to bear on the dynamic challenges of interpersonal communication. As a passionate, patient and playful educator and coach, he has spent decades leading students to making effective, objective-based connections with their audiences with a rigorous, well-researched, and time-tested approach to building their skills. Among the courses and workshops he has developed, some of his favorites are those on productive interviewing, challenging conversations, speaking anxiety, presenting scientific research, and as part of the University Honors Program, a semester-long project called “Fear, Failure, and Catastrophe: How to Talk with Strangers (and People You Think You know).”

Brian has been a member of the University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts and Dance faculty since 2002. Since 2016, he has taught numerous science communication workshops and classes (Center for Immunology, Masonic Cancer Center, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Interdisciplinary Fellowship Program in Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Health, Dept. of Psychology, and Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science among others). In 2020, he developed the first graduate course in science communication in the School of Nursing, and added a similar course to the Rehabilitation Science Graduate Program in the School of Medicine.