Your Old College Friends Are Doing Interesting Things. Here's How to Find Out.

Everyone has them. The people from university you liked, connected with on LinkedIn at some point, and then slowly lost track of. They're still there in your connections. You just never look.

Some of them have done remarkable things. Someone is now a founder three years into a company that's growing fast. Someone else left their corporate job and moved to a different country. Someone you barely knew in class is now a VP at a company you admire.

LinkedIn has all of this information. You're just not looking at it.

The nostalgia gap

There's something interesting about old college and school friends that doesn't apply to professional contacts: the relationship is already personal. You have shared history. There's warmth there even after years of silence — you just need to revive it.

The awkwardness of reconnecting with a business contact you haven't spoken to in three years barely exists with an old friend. They're usually happy to hear from you. The trick is actually reaching out, which most people never do because they assume too much time has passed.

Too much time has never passed for a genuine reconnection. The only thing stopping you is inertia.

Industry scoring shows you what fields they're in now

When you score your connections by industry, you get a map of what the people in your life have become. It's genuinely surprising. You'll see patterns you never noticed: several people from your graduating class ended up in fintech, a cluster of them are in education, a handful are in healthcare.

Some of that is professionally interesting. Some of it is just personally interesting. "Oh, she went into climate tech — I had no idea." That's worth a message.

The discovery moment — "wait, Tom is a VP now?" — happens more often than you'd expect. People's trajectories take unexpected turns over a decade. LinkedIn captures it all. You just haven't looked.

The casual reconnection message that doesn't feel weird

Here's the thing about reconnecting with old friends: you don't need a reason. You can just say hi. That's it.

No agenda. No ask. Just genuine human interest. This gets replies because it's not weird — it's how actual friendships work. People drift, reconnect, drift again. That's normal.

If a professional context makes sense naturally, it'll come up in the conversation. But don't lead with it. Lead with the person.

The friend who became a VP

One of the most common reactions people have when they actually look through their old connections: genuine surprise at where people have ended up. The quiet person from your study group is now running a team of 40. The one who seemed directionless graduated into a decade of focused career building.

These people are doing things worth knowing about. And they might be in a position to help you with something — a referral, an introduction, advice about a market they know well.

But that comes later. First you just have to say hi.

Making it easy to actually do this

The reason most people never go through their old connections is that LinkedIn isn't designed to make it easy. There's no filter for "people I went to university with." You'd have to scroll through hundreds of connections trying to remember how you know each person.

wait who? maps your connections by industry so you can quickly see what your network has become. It turns the "I should really reconnect with people" intention into a five-minute activity rather than a two-hour project.

Your old friends are doing interesting things. Some of them would genuinely love to hear from you. All it takes is sending the message.