Firm handshakes, career advice and memories were shared between alumni and students at the 15th annual Metro Connections Night on Thursday evening.

More than 300 students brought business-professional attire and résumés to the New York Marriott East Side Hotel to network with approximately 130 Binghamton University graduates employed in fields ranging from sales to social work. Alumni represented 31 different industries, and many cited a similar motivation for volunteering at the event: the desire to help students from their alma mater get started as professionals. Students registered for the event by signing up on hireBING at the beginning in November.

“I came to one of these events as a student and met a ton of insightful alumni,” said Sabreen Jafry, who graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and now works as a content strategist at Zenith Media. “I feel like Binghamton gave me the opportunity to be where I am now and I definitely want to help out in any way I can.”

The event — a collaboration between the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development and the Office of Alumni Engagement — was the culmination of “Binghamton in the City,” a week of events designed to bring together current and former students in the New York metropolitan area. Other events included ice skating at Bryant Park and visits to companies including NBC and PepsiCo, Inc.

The event began at 6 p.m. with the Career Insights Panel, a moderated session during which four alumni discussed their professional paths after leaving BU. Marla Brickman, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1987 and now serves as senior director of clinical trial disclosure at Pfizer Inc., espoused the importance of taking risks and embracing the failure that may result.

“Be okay with failure,” Brickman said. “Sometimes failing is really crashing and burning and building yourself back up, so don’t let that scare you because you learn more from your failure than you do from your successes.”

The three other panelists, who were chosen on the basis of experience in their respective fields, included Rose Barre, ‘06, Gil Dickoff, ‘84 and Ray Mateo, ‘04. Barre, the director of premium sales and services at the New York Yankees, spoke of channeling her passion for sports into a career. She earned a bachelor of science in human development from BU in 2006 before receiving a master’s degree in social science and public administration in 2008.

Dickoff earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1983 and a master’s degree in business administration from the BU School of Management in 1984, and currently serves as senior vice president and treasurer of the Scholastic Corporation. Mateo is an associate at Calcagni and Kanefsky, LLP, where he focuses on white-collar criminal defense and internal corporate investigations. He graduated in 2004 with bachelor’s degrees in political science and philosophy before receiving a law degree from Rutgers University in 2009.

Following the panel, students went to the Morgan Ballroom of the hotel where alumni were stationed at cocktail tables. Students were able to speak to each alumnus for as long as they wanted and there were lines of two to six students at almost every table.

According to Courtney Huff, the assistant director of alumni engagement at BU, a focus of this year’s Metro Connections Night was to diversify the alumni present by seeking out graduates working in growing fields like entrepreneurship and application development. Francis Borrego, senior assistant director of marketing and assessment at the Fleishman Center, said the number of underclassmen attending the event increased since last year.

“We want students, no matter if they’re freshmen or about to graduate, to get a flavor for all of the different opportunities out there and meet with successful alumni who are very passionate about Binghamton University and helping students,” he said.