As I write this, in mid-February, Drexel University is shut down for the third time this year by a snowstorm. Drexel has a reputation for powering through winter when other institutions throw in the towel, prompting one alumnus to remark to me, “Drexel has gotten soft. When I was there, no way they would have cancelled for less than a foot.”
But it’s been one of those winters. Canadian blasts have brought almost weekly powder and accumulations that already top 54 inches. With six more weeks of winter to go, Philadelphia will easily become one of the top three snowiest winters on record, turning Drexel’s snowman-sentinelled paths and quads weirdly still.
So while I watch my car vanish beneath a white drift and a glacier form over a freezing water main break on my block, I look forward to this issue coming out in the spring, when hibernation will be over and the mingling, meeting and connecting that is so elemental to college life (which is also, I’m about to suggest, the theme of this edition…) will have resumed.
This issue has two aims. It’s a humble brag, for one. It’s our annual edition of top alumni under 40 and through their success stories, we get to boast about our greatest accomplishments: You. You are Oscar winners, Olympians, startup stars, athletes and artists. You represent some of the great opportunities a Drexel degree affords.
This issue is also reminder that some of the most powerful assets of a college degree are the people you meet during these four or five years — and long afterward through your shared connection to this campus.
For many of our 40 Under 40, these connections have been key. While putting together this issue, we interviewed business partners who met through a mutual co-op, a couple who started their lives and careers together while students, classroom friends who became colleagues in the television and film industry after graduation and Drexel alumni who came back to work for their alma mater as administrators.
A strong alumni network keeps on giving long after you’ve moved away or forgotten half of what you learned in class, and through programs like the Drexel co-op and the University’s new initiative to create satellite campuses across the country, it’s always growing if you cultivate it well.
Keep your network active, keep it broad — and get outside. It’s been a really long winter.
Sonja Sherwood / Editor