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I'm not sure how I feel about a student wanting to set up an appointment for help with the subject I taught them... after graduating, when they need the subject for their first task at their new job.
No, it is totally outside your rolemail and they are taking advantage. If you do not want the tutoring/consulting you can offer to put them in touch with someone that does
@StrongBad on the other hand, it's kind of weird that I'm happy to talk to students about the subject before and after they leave my class... until they graduate, and then suddenly it's "nope, you missed your chance"
@ff524 yes, it is a little weird. You can talk to them if you want. The thing to remember is the student is now likely making way more money than you and the company should hopefully be willing to pay for its employees to take workshops to give them the skills they need.
If the student was a grad student at another university, then I would be willing to help them.
@ff524 It happened to me a few times: if it's something I can answer in a less than 1 hour chat, I give them a "free" appointment. As a professor, anyway, it's nice to see what your former students are doing now. If then it turns out that it's much more complicated I tell them that in that case we would need to setup a consultancy contract with their company. In this case, however, I specify that due to my duties I might not be able to work on short deadlines.
@ff524 Moreover, they typically expect this: having a job makes them aware of the fact that you cannot ask free consultancies beyond a certain limit. Only once there has been a misunderstanding with a former graduate advisee of mine.
@ff524 And sometimes they just need a confirmation that what their boss thinks is a simple problem, it's actually much more complicated :-)
The Ivory Tower
The Ivory Tower