How a Cold LinkedIn DM Found Me a Community Across the Atlantic
Think back to the moment you received a major life-changing update. For me, it was getting my PhD admission letter to the Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies (ISLT) program at Florida State University. Once the initial rush of excitement and celebration settled, a heavy, practical thought immediately took over: “How am I going to find my people?” Moving across the world to a new city, a new university, and a completely new culture is exhilarating, but it can also be profoundly isolating. We live in an era dominated by recommendation algorithms, but when you are looking for a genuine human community, waiting for an algorithm to serve it to you on a silver platter rarely works. So, I decided to bypass the algorithm entirely. Treating LinkedIn Like a Targeted Search Engine Instead of passively scrolling through my feed hoping to stumble across a connection, I treated LinkedIn like a highly specific, targeted search engine. I knew that names alone weren't enough to narrow d...