Alison Mendoza is orchestrating career connections for music industry students.

Mendoza, a third-year music industry student who is graduating this year, hosted “A Seat at the Table: Music Industry Networking Night” on May 12 for interested students to connect with industry professionals – a project that doubled as the capstone for her major. Mendoza said the event was a culmination of many months of planning and focused on allowing students to engage with the music sector of the entertainment world, which had commanded her interest since a young age.

“Growing up, I’ve always had an interest in music,” Mendoza said. “I just started exploring what artist teams look like. Building these universes … artists have for fans and that fans get to be a part of got really interesting to me. And then I just decided that I really wanted to be a part of making that happen.”

When Mendoza first entered UCLA in 2022, she said she set a goal to explore opportunities that would expose her to the field, especially because the music industry major did not exist in its current form at the time. This led her to participate in UCLA’s Entertainment Networking Night, where she said she landed her first internship after connecting with a member of the entertainment and music management company, The Ogunlesi Group. This experience, she added, served as the launchpad to her future career, and she wanted to create a music industry-specific experience for students because she noticed that it was not as successfully represented at the event.

“There’s an Entertainment Networking Night every year,” Mendoza said. “But during my time at UCLA, every single year, there’s less music industry people. I think the first time, we had about maybe four or five people that directly worked within music. Everyone else was TV writing, talent agents, other stuff relating to the entertainment industry, but there was really a big gap for music industry.”

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Emma Windsor, the artist relations and back-of-house operations manager at Rolling Loud Festival, said having a music-specific networking night is helpful for students who have a strong passion for music. Windsor was Mendoza’s supervisor during her time at Rolling Loud and said the specific location of Los Angeles as an entertainment center can cause various careers in the industry to be lumped together despite the fact that they are very different from one another.

Toward the end of last year, music industry lecturer Stig Edgren said Mendoza reached out to him to mentor her for the duration of her capstone. Throughout the following months, the two of them would speak every few weeks, with Mendoza providing updates on the progress of the networking night. Edgren said a big challenge she faced was securing a venue for the event, a process Mendoza said took several months.

“The biggest thing and comment that I have to make about Ali is her perseverance,” Edgren said. “A lot of people would’ve given up, or they would’ve said, ‘No, forget it. I’ll just do a report or presentation on what could’ve been this career networking project.’ But instead, she kept going. She kept pushing, and despite the setbacks, she kept going and she finally landed a venue that she liked.”

Once Mendoza eventually secured the Bruin Reception Room in Ackerman Union, she said she immediately reached out to industry connections she had made during her internships to be representatives at the event. Five of the UCLA alumni she interned with agreed to come, Mendoza said, and she then utilized the alumni network to secure four additional professionals. She added that she specifically targeted professionals in midlevel positions, as she wanted students to be able to see the possibilities for them within the field in the near future.

Promotion for the networking night took several forms, Mendoza said, such as presenting in classrooms and creating around 100 flyers, which she hung across campus with her best friend, third-year economics student Ellie Herschelman. Edgren said the event was a “major hit,” and he saw many connections being made. Around 100 attendees participated in the networking night, Mendoza added.

“You could see how many people were so happy to be there – there was a line out the door,” added Herschelman, who checked people in at the event. “All the tables were full. And I think it’s great that the students got to connect with people who have been successful in the field that they want to be successful with.”

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An important mission Mendoza said she had for the event was to create a space for participants to make genuine connections with the people around them rather than a traditional career-related event focused on dropping resumes and giving elevator pitches. She added that she hoped the personal conversations would lead to enduring relationships that could be mutually beneficial down the line.

“That’s why it was called ‘A Seat at the Table’ – I wanted it to be like, ‘Come sit down, talk about life, talk about anything except pitching yourself for a job,’” Mendoza said. “So the most rewarding part was just to see all of the guests and students have amazing conversations and hopefully create more meaningful relationships that they could benefit from in the future.”

Mendoza added that she had gotten feedback from participants that they had received interviews from companies taking part in the networking event.

Aside from her capstone project, Mendoza has been involved in other music-related projects on and off campus, including being a founding member of UCLA-based record label Cherry Pop Records, which she was part of for a year and a half, as well as working on tour support for Tate McRae, an experience she said opened her eyes to how artist management works for big artists. After graduation, Mendoza said she plans to continue working in artist management with a company called JET Management. She added that she hopes to continue helping artists build their brands.

“Ali is a prime example of someone who approaches things with humbleness and also gratefulness – but also a passion that you need,” Windsor said. “So I’m really excited to see where her career goes, and hopefully I get to work with her a lot more.”