Finding Your Community Around the World

This next success story is about Jessica.

In January, Jessica posted an ask on  Switchboard: “Meet me at airport/restaurant & I buy you breakfast in London, Sat. Feb 2.”

Jessica says, “I posted an ask on Switchboard for my fantasy, someone to meet me at the airport really early, have me buy them breakfast, and then take me to my hotel. I knew it was a long shot but I figured, don’t ask, don’t get.”

One of Switchboard’s many mottos is: “Ask and Ye Shall Receive.” Jessica asked, and she did receive. After posting on Reed Switchboard, she connected with Michael ‘07 and Susan ‘07 and got her wish.

“Michael met me at my train station, took me on a cool little tour, and then the three of us had a very nice dinner at Duke of Cambridge. They even waited an hour with me at the bar for my cab as the trains had stopped running.”

“I would absolutely recommend Switchboard to other Reedies and will probably use it again,” says Jessica. “One of the nice things about Reedies is that if you’re traveling somewhere where you don’t know anyone, you can usually find a Reedie willing to entertain you.”

Jessica and Michael and Susan graduated 14 years apart. They all went to Reed, but were separated by time. Five thousand miles away from their alma mater, Switchboard brought them together.

Community & Hosiery

When we highlight our users’ success stories, we tend to focus on the ones that seem the biggest—typically stories about someone landing a job or internship. Every now and then, though, a story too good to pass up comes along, and we have to share it. This story, about Lai and two pairs of American Apparel hosiery, is one of those.

First, a little background from Lai herself. Lai posted her Offer on the Reed Switchboard—she graduated from Reed College in 2013. For her, American Apparel hosiery bear a special association with her college experience. “First, I want to emphasize that this is American Apparel hosiery,” she says. “I was introduced to American Apparel via a Reed friend, who was a huge fan of their basics. Of course, I had the option of shoving them on to whoever is next to me in New York, but I felt like a Reedie would appreciate it more.”

At Reed, there’s an annual dance where students, many of them clad in tights, cover one another in glitter. “I wanted another Reedie who appreciates our tradition of tights and glitter to have my extra hosiery,” Lai says.

When a fellow Reedie contacted Lai, they arranged to meet in Bryant Park for the exchange.

There, in front of the Bryant Statue, Lai gave away the hosiery. “The handing over of the hosiery was over in a matter of seconds,” Lai says. “I gave them to her in a brown Zara bag and said she could check the contents if she wished. She said it was ok, and thanked me before rapidly walking off with her friend.”

If only for a moment, a spark of recognition passed between Lai and the recipient of the hosiery—the leggings, the memories of glitter. That spark reconnected Lai to her college community and made a small patch of Bryant Park feel, for an instant, like home.

Lai encourages other members of her community to reconnect with one another, as well. “I would encourage everyone to use Switchboard! Reed friendships are very special,” she says. “Give everything and anything! Rather than hoard something, pass it on.”

You don’t need to find a job or internship through a member of your community to feel gratitude, to feel that you’re a part of the whole. Sometimes it only takes a few pairs of tights.

Photo of Bryant Park by Dan DeLuca.

Planning Your Switchboard Roadtrip: The Power of Community Advice

Michela and three of her friends posted an ask on Switchboard last April. The four of them were seeking advice on a roadtrip to the Southwest that they were planning for the summer. Michela chose to post on Switchboard because she had had success with Switchboard before. “I had a lot of success with Switchboard before (finding a place to stay in NYC), and I was really impressed with the effort alumni made to help,” she says.

Michela and her friends also knew that the advice they received from their community would be unique and reliable. Michela says, “Secondly, we figured that Reedies would have good perspectives on our Southwest adventures that we wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere. We’d looked through guidebooks and the internet broadly, but wanted some targeted advice or at least advice that we could trust 100%.”

Several members of their community responded with advice on where to go, what to eat, and what to avoid. “Honestly the suggestions we got from Reedies ended up being the best advice we got for the whole trip,” Michela says. “Paria Canyon and Calf Creek Falls literally shocked us into complete silence. They were both at the ends of 3 mile hikes and the incredible beauty of slot canyons at sunset and a waterfall at sunrise after a desert hike was literally breathtaking. I will probably never forget how awesome and just totally alive I felt after visiting those two places. And we would have never thought to go to them without the advice of Reedies on Switchboard.”

Some people come to Switchboard looking for a mentor, or for a place to stay. But Michela found a life-changing experience. “The other Switchboard-related story that really sticks out to me is our 3 day trek into and out of the Grand Canyon,” says Michela. “The trek was physically and emotionally grueling and full of unbelievable turns of events. It was intense and I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend people do what we did, but it is one of the things in my life I am most proud of, and is the first story I tell people when they ask what the trip was liked. Had we not been inspired by advice on Switchboard we probably wouldn’t have even had the idea to hike into the Canyon in the first place and definitely wouldn’t have had the guts to follow through with it.”

Michela adds, “More generally, that entire trip was one of the best and most important experiences of my life, and it came together in large part due to the generosity, helpfulness, and enthusiasm of the Reed community.” Our communities can change our lives if we only know how to tap into their reservoirs of experience and altruism. Switchboard makes it easy to ask our communities for help, and for our communities to respond to those asks. Sometimes this manifests as a job or internship, sometimes as a breathtaking view of a waterfall after sunrise.

Photos by Rick McCharles and Greg Willis, respectively.