News
Jan 03 2023
1 Alumni, 10 Stories, Infinite Impact
Grady Singleton
Students, parents and staff often remark about how remarkable the BCIS community is – an international school that feels like a family! Although this community spirit is easy to feel as soon as you step foot inside BCIS and our ECC, what happens after you leave? Can BCISers maintain close connections with friends and faculty? Can the BCIS community continue to empower you, as you continue to strengthen it?
According to our amazing Alumni Annie, you absolutely can stay connected to this wonderful BCIS community and all its resources, even after leaving the country! Although Annie graduated from BCIS in 2019 and is currently studying at Parsons School of Design in New York, she remains connected to her BCIS roots through our Alumni Intern program. Annie has been interning with the BCIS Alumni Relations Team, helping them maintain social media accounts, and liaising with the ever-growing BCIS New York Alumni Association.
Annie took on the Alumni Relations internship to challenge herself and improve her skills in communication. Although working from halfway across the world was certainly a sizable challenge, Annie found it highly rewarding – rewarding in the valuable work experience she gained, as well as the close connections she has been able to form with our greater Alumni community. “The task I felt the most proud of was reaching out to the other alumni. Some of them I knew from class, but others I didn’t know at all. Building connections with all of them and learning their stories was my favorite part of the work,” she describes. It was these connections that inspired Annie’s ambitious Alumni project – the BCIS Alumni Wall.
“The Alumni Wall can bring our alumni back to the current school community and tell their stories,” explains Annie. She worked with 10 different alumni to collect the stories of their time after BCIS and the impact the school had on them, and turn these stories into a visual design project in the form of the Alumni Wall. Focusing on Alumni who have left BCIS creates greater connections between them and current students. Friends and teachers can check on their former classmates and students and learn where they are now and what they are working on.
Annie believes that BCIS is great at encouraging students to follow their passions. The Alumni Wall will further this goal, allowing former and current students to connect over the actions that matter most to them. Seeing the stories of those who have come before you, and following in their footsteps, or even getting in contact to work collaboratively with alumni, adds a whole new layer of inspiration to this critically important design project.
The BCIS Alumni Relations Team is working hard to ensure this compassionate community stays connected no matter where its members go. The Alumni Wall is just one of many great Alumni-run projects in the pipeline. Currently, the Alumni Relations Team, together with current students and alumni, are also working on an Alumni Portal that will make connecting with BCIS Alumni worldwide even easier. As for the Alumni Wall, it will ensure that even though they have left campus, BCIS Alumni continue to make an impact on the school! Impacts like the one Annie herself helped create, as she continues to spread the famous BCIS spirit in New York and beyond!
