we build engaged young alumni communities

Our young alumni-led team gives you the platform and insights to keep your young alumni engaged and giving back.

community building
life design program
The Team

We specialize in engagement services for young alumni 0-5 years out.Our team helps Alumni Offices stay engaged with recent college graduates. We build and manage your young alumni community, conduct need-finding research of your graduation class, and run a cohort-based life design program for the current class to ease the transition to post-grad life.Our clients understand that investing in your Year 0-5 alumni is an effective long term fundraising and engagement strategy.

Who we've worked with

“Life Pods is on to something. My team has been looking at ways to provide value and better engage young alumni immediately after graduation for the entirety of my 10 years working at Duke. This is the missing piece to set up Duke alumni for success.”
—Willie Green, former Sr. Director of Campus Engagement at Duke Alumni Association

Work with us

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Community Building

What We Offer
- Insight into challenges and joys of your young alumni population, and how to meet them where they are
- Build and manage an engaged young alumni online community, complete with cross-posting university initiatives
- Monthly activities to retain young alumni engagement
- In-person event management
- Up to date contact information on the graduating class
- Playbook on how to manage the community in-house

User Research

What We Offer
- Complete white glove service from recruiting research participants, creating discussion guide, and conducting interviews
- In-depth qualitative 1:1 interviews with target participants
- Quantitative survey design and analytics
- Market research on existing / competing offerings
- Key themes readout with student stories and insights
- Personas creation

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The Team

Judy Zhu
Co-Founder | Duke'17

Michelle Nie
Co-Founder | Berkeley '16

Niat Habtemariam
Research Lead | JHU '21

Athan Cheng
Project Manager | JHU '21

In addition, we have a stellar team of advisors to guide us on strategy, curriculum, and research.

Savannah Erwin
Duke Clinical Psychology PhD

Dr. Rafe Steinhauer
Life Design Professor at Dartmouth

Ted Munter
Life Coach at Molly School

Willie Green
Former Sr. Director, Duke Alumni Association

Grace Hae Rim Shin
Former Academic Advisor, Stanford | UCLA PhD

Dr. Scott Swartzwelder
Clinical Psychology Professor at Duke Med

Lauren Bradley
Director of Young Alumni, University of Rochester

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adulting 101: post-grad life design program

Our 3-month Life Design program helps recent college graduates transition into adulthood in a cohort-based learning model.The 12-session curriculum was developed in collaboration with Professor Rafe Steinhauer @ Dartmouth. Peer mentors go through training vetted by Clinical Psychologist team at Duke Health, led by Dr. Scott Swartzwelder.Curriculum topics include (customized to the needs of your school):
- Starting work/grad school on the right foot
- Getting settled in a new city
- Budgeting
- Mental health and wellness
- Forging friendships and relationships
- Finding purpose
- Being a lifelong learnerOur active school partners increase young alum affinity to the school, and see higher social engagement among the graduating class.

Click here to learn more about the life design program.

Click here to view our whitepaper, Life Pods: Lessons Learned from Peer Mentorship Models.

Interested in bringing our life design program to your institution? Contact us!

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work with us

You can also email us directly at hello@lifepods.academy