Does that football fight song bring back memories of your own high school or college days? Sometimes it takes only a little tune like that old school song or a popular melody from long ago to start our minds racing with thoughts of old times and old friends. There is nothing like a common experience to bind people together, and nothing forms stronger bonds than being schoolmates. Wouldn’t you like to see what your old classmates look like now? Whatever happened to your first love? How about the class clown who made everyone laugh?

Technology to the rescue! Technological advancements have improved our health and lifestyles and have significantly lengthened life spans. Thanks to technology, we now have more time to enjoy those early friendships formed during our school years. Technology also arms us with tools to reunite us with our old classmates. Where do we start? The Internet is a great tool to help find old friends and acquaintances. The starting place is a good search engine or, even better, some of the helpful Web directories that list names, addresses, and class dates of millions of people.

Search Engines

An example of a useful search engine starting place is Yahoo. With pages of listings for individual high school alumni clubs as well as many Web directories, this is a comprehensive search site. Check to see if your school has its own Web site by scrolling down the list produced when you search for “high school alumni.” If you are looking for a college, fraternity, or sorority connection, you can enter the name of your school or organization directly in the search box. Often these larger organizations have their own Web sites and sometimes even a separate Web site or page for alumni directories and activities.

Alumni Directories

Alumni directories are popular sites, which will help you trace specific classmates. Most of these service sites use a similar approach for finding your old friends. You will be asked to register and choose a password. Through the simple, usually free, registration process, you will join millions of registered users. Your registration information will be located with your graduating class. The personal profile you post lets your fellow alumni know what you have been up to since high school. Once you’ve registered, you can track down and reconnect with old friends. Search features also work for maiden names, making it easy to find just about anyone.

Most of the directory sites rely on advertising sponsors to keep the site running so be prepared for banner ads and the somewhat intrusive advertising that will pop up on your screen. In addition to your first name, last name, e-mail address, and graduation year, many sites ask for additional personal information and interests. In most cases, this information is not required and you may not want to supply it. Look around the Web site before you enter any information. Read the privacy statement. Make sure that you have the option of deleting your profile should you wish.

Popular Alumni Directories

Alumni.net

Alumni.net boasts that they bring over 2.5 million school friends together reuniting over 3,000 people each day. Their fun surveys really get you thinking about old times. When I visited the site, the current question was “If you were to go back in time, would you study harder in high school?” Would you? Alumni.net can connect you to most major college and university alumni Web pages in the US as well as many international higher learning institutions. They also include links to elementary schools and high schools as well as the military.

Gradfinder

Gradfinder is part of the Friendfinder Network. Another free service keeping people in touch around the world, this site offers personal bio pages, reunion planners, photo album creators, message boards, friends list, and a people finder. You can search for old classmates at more than 190,000 schools, colleges, and universities from over 200 countries.

Highschool Alumni

Highschool Alumni’s home page is Reunion.com. The concept for this site started with a look forward, rather than a look back. A student at A.C. Flora High School in Columbia, South Carolina, created this site in January 1999. He and a group of his friends designed Highschool Alumni to stay in contact with fellow graduates as they moved on to different stages of their lives. Since then, Highschool Alumni has evolved into a rapidly growing network of 3.5 million old friends looking to get in touch with each other.

Free services offered are Alumni Watch, where users receive e-mail updates when their old friends register, and Alumni Message that gives users the ability to contact each other without ever leaving the site. High School Alumni currently lists for over 33,000 schools across the country and as well as Department of Defense schools around the world.

Classmates.com

One of the most extensive sites is Classmates.com. This site has over 29 million surfers using their services. Like other alumni sites, you can find schools in the US as well as Canada and overseas American Schools. At their Reunion Center, you can find the latest, from tips on overcoming your pre-reunion jitters to the logistics of when and where the reunion will be held. You can even become a Reunion Contact and post and update class reunion information.

Classmates.com offers some fun features. I enjoyed the Listen to the Music feature that shared top hits of every era. Just like magic, the site produced a list of over twenty tunes that were popular during my senior year of high school. You were then able to select and listen to any or all of them. And no quarters were needed for this jukebox. You might do better than I did at some fun games to play. There was one to recognize a diamond in the rough. When I tried to identify four famous people from their high school yearbook photos in the Celebrity Classmates game, I zeroed out with 0 out of four. There is a lot to take in on the Classmates.com site.

SchoolNews.com

Find your old friends at this alumni database of over 35,000 US and Canadian schools. The site’s mission is to re-connect you with your old classmates. When you register, you are given access to members’ e-mail addresses. Find out how they look now and/or brag about your accomplishments. SchoolNews.com allows you to post a personal bio and picture. The site has many links to high school and class reunion pages and has won several awards. You are invited to post and receive messages from fellow alumni as well as post and read information on upcoming alumni reunions.

Greek Connections

As we mentioned earlier, often larger organizations such as fraternities or sororities have their own Web sites and sometimes even a separate Web site or page for alumni directories and activities. To reconnect with your old fraternity brothers or sorority sisters, you can enter the name of your Greek affiliate directly in the search box. Many sites have members’ directories, photo albums, message boards, group news, reunion planners, and a career center. Often you will find Greek organizations listed by campus chapters under the umbrella national organization.

Resources for finding old friends from your alma mater are right at your fingertips, thanks to the Internet. Tracking down and reuniting with old alums can be an enjoyable endeavor. Combine a little of the new, that’s technology of course, with a little of the old, our past and the good friends in it, and enjoy the adventure.