Networking and Mentorship
Make connections in the UCSF community to expand your opportunities and share your knowledge.
UCSF Connect, UCSF’s networking platform, is a powerful tool for connecting with friends, peers, and colleagues among the UCSF community – alumni, faculty members, students, residents, fellows, and postdocs.
For early-career alumni and current students, UCSF Connect can help advance your career by keeping you up to date on job opportunities, UCSF events, professional development programs, and opportunities to partner with a mentor for guidance during your journey.
For mid-career alumni and faculty members, the platform can help expand your network by connecting you with people you should know, opening up inspiring mentorship and volunteer opportunities, and finding highly skilled employees from among our community.
We’ve answered common questions about UCSF Connect below. Visit the “Making Connections” page for more ideas and tips to help you make the most of networking opportunities.
What is UCSF Connect?
Launched in April 2017, UCSF Connect is the official networking platform for UCSF alumni, students, residents, fellows, postdocs, and faculty. It is a free online service accessed at ucsfconnect.com.
It is sponsored by all UCSF alumni associations, the Office of Alumni Relations, and the Office of Career and Professional Development (OCPD).
Alumni Relations and OCPD staff members serve as administrators of the platform.
How do you join?
You can register and login using your existing LinkedIn or Facebook account, or you can create an account using your personal email address.
Alumni and students registering with the email in our UCSF database, or anyone registering through the UCSF campus MyAccess Single Sign-On (SSO), will be automatically approved.
Those who log in using an email we don’t already have in our database will see their registration listed as “pending” until UCSF staff can confirm their UCSF affiliation. Pending users are typically confirmed within one business day.
How is it different from LinkedIn or Facebook?
UCSF Connect is just for UCSF community members. The directory is searchable by user type, degree, specialty, location and/or keyword. Additionally, identifying others who are willing to help is simple and messaging them does not require additional requests to connect. The community is opt-in, which means that individuals using UCSF Connect have volunteered to make themselves available to the network.
How can alumni (degreed, residents/fellows, and postdocs) help one another and current students, residents, fellows, and postdocs using UCSF Connect?
When registering or updating their profile, users can indicate how they are willing to help. Options include:
- Introduce others to my connections
- Answer questions about my field
- Speak on campus about my career
- Be a mentor, and...
- offer advice
- review resumes
- participate in an informational interview
These options are searchable in the directory, and add a layer of additional permissions for users who would like to reach out and connect with one another.
Why should I join?
UCSF Connect is your chance to connect with more than 2,000 health sciences experts and trainees. These individuals have opted in to being contacted by UCSF students and alumni, and their contact information is always up to date.
It’s the perfect place to connect with others who might be able to help you in your job search; to post a job at your own company; to learn about on and off-campus programming in your field; and to help current students, residents, fellows, and postdocs as a mentor.
As an alumni, you can also seek career and mentoring guidance for yourself!