From study groups to LinkedIn connections: How to maximise your peer network

By Katrina Gardner , Careers & Employability Manager

Making and maintaining strong connections with your peers at university will really feed into making your experience here so much more enriching.

For example, students who collaborate in study groups can support each other in their learning, especially when grasping complex topics and sharing useful resources. Together, you can develop key skills like teamwork, communication, project management and problem-solving. You and your peers can also give feedback to each other on your skills development to help build your self-awareness.

According to a 2022 article by Brouwer, et al, “…[S]tudents help each other more often when they are already friends and students who help each other academically are more likely to become friends.”

On a personal level, your peer network at university can help you maintain your wellbeing and deal with stress. At university, you can also broaden your world view by connecting with people from different places with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and life experiences. This could boost your confidence tremendously. And, of course, your friendship network at university can foster your sense of belonging here and beyond.

But there’s even more value in those connections than you might think.

Your peer network now can be your professional one in the future

As important as a strong friendship network can be for your wellbeing and academic performance, your peer network can be much wider and with many people you aren’t necessarily emotionally close to but like and respect enough to want to stay connected with online, perhaps on Snapchat or Instagram.

Now and in the future, your peer network can be useful for accessing career and learning opportunities. Currently, this may be about sharing industry events, competitive activities (eg hackathons or enterprise competitions), part-time jobs and internships. Later, this may be how you find out about that amazing masters course, your ideal PhD opportunity and, of course, many more jobs and training opportunities in your longer-term career.

To maintain your peer connections, start connecting with them now on LinkedIn to bring them into your growing professional network. Then, you can stay in touch with each other’s career journeys for years to come.

How to build your peer network

You’ve been building your peer network since your early years at school and in extracurricular clubs and activities. So, continue getting to know people not just in study opportunities but also the people you meet and interact with in clubs and societies, voluntary work, part-time jobs and other interests.

Your peer network doesn’t just have to include people at the same learning stage as you, so connect also with students in years above and below you. This can happen in co-curricular activities including becoming a mentee in your first year and a mentor in your later years of university.

You can also connect with recent graduates who’re slightly ahead of you in their career journey. This’ll give you some ideas for possible next career steps. You can often meet recent alumni at careers events.

Other resources

Our LinkedIn Masterclass: Learn how to use LinkedIn to your advantage, including developing a strong profile, researching potential career ideas and employers and connecting with others

Our careers events: Engage in careers fairs, networking events, employer presentations, workshops and pop-ups, Masterclasses and more to get career-ready