Title: Any Person, Any Study, Any Friend

[00:00:06,760] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I'm Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. 

[00:00:14,640] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: And I'm Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. 

[00:00:29,400] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Today we are talking with Tony Chen, who has made it his mission to connect Cornell alumni with each other, with events of interests, to bring people together, to build community, to grow the Cornell connections. And we're always promoting connections with students. Tony will share some nuggets on how to think about this as a systems approach, how to apply systems engineering to networking. So join us. Tony, we're so glad to have you here today. This is a special edition of the Engineering Career Conversations. And you are working so hard on keeping Cornellians connected, inviting them to a thriving alumni network. And can you please tell us more about the Cornell global mixers and the continuous reunion efforts. 

[00:01:23,580] TONY CHEN: Yeah. So the mixers are every two weeks on Saturday Evenings. We started during the pandemic. March 2020 the pandemic happened. And then there were many events. Like I was already involved in Cornell events before the pandemic, Like every week, we would go run 3 miles and have lunch together. We would go to the museum. We would watch a new sport every month. And it's like we had a lot of events before the pandemic out in DC, and the pandemic happened and then they stopped. During the pandemic, I started doing the Zoom calls. So everybody gets to still see each other. So that's been going on for four years now, 2020 to 2024, every two weeks. Like, maybe like 6,000-8,000 Cornellians have been through the mixers now. People come and make friends with each other, and they come back again and again, every two weeks to see each other again. People make friends. And then, like, you see a lot of life changes over time, too. Some Cornellians they lose their job. They find a job. In the course of those four years, some Cornellians start graduate degree school. And then a couple of years later, they finish their graduate degree school. You see the life cycles of  Cornell throughout the Zoom call. 

[00:02:42,075] CHRISTA DOWNEY: It sounds like you started this with your group that you were already networking with in DC, and you've expanded it. So it's Cornellians anywhere, is that right? 

[00:02:51,700] TONY CHEN: The pandemic like isolated all of us. At the same time, brought us all of us together, too. The pandemic, I think if the pandemic didn't happen, I would still run the events in DC. And it would only been DC people. But because like everybody around the world had a similar issue, we all expanded globally. It was Alumni Affairs and Development, they're very helpful. May time around May or April. They had a wonderful event. They brought together all the different Cornell clubs, and then all the Cornell cubs shared what kind of things they were doing I was doing the crosswords, the NY Times Crossword every week with, like, ten, 20 Cornellians every week on Saturdays at 3:00 P.M. Eastern Time. So I talked a little bit about the crossword. And then I think Cornell Club, Boston talked a little bit about the events they've been organizing. Now I realized that everybody had the same issues. So I started organizing the mixers through that. All the clubs got to meet each other that way. 

[00:03:44,420] CHRISTA DOWNEY: We need to get a link in our show notes to where people can learn about these mixers. 

[00:03:49,280] TONY CHEN: I'll send it over to you. Yeah, it's been the same link for, like, 3.5 years now. 

[00:03:54,000] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: And can you tell us then about the continuous reunions? How are they different? 

[00:03:57,965] TONY CHEN: Oh, gee. Yeah, I hope everybody goes to a reunion every year. No, not just every five years, not every ten years, but every year. The continuous reunion club. We've been coming to reunion every year since 1908. Yeah, I always tell people to go to reunion every year because it's the best way to meet alumni. Everybody's back in Ithaca. Nobody's working, everybody gets to meet each other. And then it's all very, like, informal ways of meeting each other. So people are much more likely to make friends with each other that way. But there's so many events too. 

[00:04:26,900] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yeah, what are your favorite events at the reunion? 

[00:04:29,280] TONY CHEN: Oh, gee, it depends on the person. Like, if you're a lawyer. You can get continued legal education credits, COE credits. There's always like three COE credits you can get every time. If you're in business, you got all the kinds of good business lectures there, too. They are like, AI in business this year, I think. I'm very excited about that one. And then if you're in engineering. There's like I always go to electrical engineering happy hour on Friday afternoons. And then I also always go to the AEP Engineering physics breakfast every Saturday morning. They have very good quiches every morning. And then last year was a new one, too. They have a graduate school one, too. For the longest time, the graduate students didn't really have, like, a dorm to stay in or a place to go. Now, the graduate school has been doing so many more graduate school events, too. So if they only went to graduate school at Cornell, there's still there's a lot of events you can go to. They had a what's a golf game called on the lawn? 

[00:05:23,890] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Bocce ball? 

[00:05:26,530] TONY CHEN: Yeah, they had like a Bocce game, I think last year. And they also had a graduate engineering afternoon tea as well. That was a, well, they had a live band, too for that one. Was out in Upson Hall where they have a nice little patio out there. They had a little music band playing there, and the graduate students come back to. And then I wish everybody would come back to reunion every year.  I love it. 

[00:05:51,210] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Now, the other thing that you help everybody, a way you keep everybody connected is through the newsletter. And so it's a newsletter for alumni, if I understand correctly. So what is the general, I'll start with this. What is the general focus of that newsletter? 

[00:06:07,920] TONY CHEN: Oh, I try to connect Cornellians, in every possible way. True, very hard to find all the different ways to connect Cornelians with each other. So, the news has all the events happening around the world. All the Cornell events. I go through like 20 or 30 lists every week and just look for all the events because otherwise, it's too hard for each individual Cornelian to look for every event. And then I get them onto one big list, that way everybody knows what events are happening. Cornell Tech has a lot of really good events in New York City. But if you didn't go to Cornell Tech, you wouldn't know about those events. Weill Cornell has so many good events, as well. And then if you didn't go to Weill Cornell, you wouldn't be knowing about those events either. The Cornell ILR Conference Center has a lot of events. All the different Cornell Clubs all around the world have different events. So there are a lot of people that don't know about the events. So I put them all into one place. So that's one way of connecting Cornellians. Another one is jobs. A lot of Cornellians are looking for jobs. Lot of Cornellians are looking to hire people, too. I see all those Cornellians posting jobs. I see all those Cornellians looking to looking for a job, but they don't see each other's posts because they're not connected with each other. I see both sides. I try very hard to copy and paste all the jobs into one place so that the Cornellians looking for a job could see that list of all the jobs, and they could reach out to the Cornellians, looking to hire. That one worked pretty good. Last week, someone told me they found a job through it. Another person told me that he got an interview from it. They didn't get the job, but he got interview from it. Yeah, it works out pretty good. 

[00:07:36,160] CHRISTA DOWNEY: It just sounds like you're really dedicating your time, all of your time, you know, it sounds like you're dedicating this time of your life to supporting other Cornellians, connecting other Cornellians. 

[00:07:47,830] TONY CHEN: There's 250,000 Cornellians. And Cornellians do all kinds of interesting things too. So I tried very hard to find all of those and then feature them. Now that way more Cornellians can know they can do all those interesting things too. Last month, Cornellian was running for US House, the House of Representatives. We went out to San Antonio for the campaign launching event. Then another Cornellian runs like a women's art gallery in New York City. I was out to that. And then a couple other woman artists reached out to her through that. And we always do a variety of different things, all kinds of different things. Yeah, I wish more Cornellians would know about them. 

[00:08:23,510] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yeah, you're a PR person for Cornellians. I love it. So what's the greatest challenge you face in doing this work? 

[00:08:28,895] TONY CHEN: There's so much Cornellians out there, and all the information is like everywhere. It's like scattered everywhere. And then I try very hard to aggregate them into one place. There's so much information everywhere. I think there's just so much, I always say that there's a lot of abundance in the Cornell community. Abundance. Whereas, the issue is a lot of Cornellians aren't connected a lot of Cornellians. They don't know about a lot of the events. There's a feeling of scarcity. And scarcity is not good. It's important to have a feeling of abundance. That we try for bigger things that we find a job within a week rather than a couple of months. 

[00:09:04,550] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Tony, I love this perspective of abundance, and I feel that way about many things in life, as well, particularly with regard to networks and getting out there and making connections and, you know, meeting new people and all of that. And certainly, with regard to careers. I know so many students struggle when they're not getting what they're looking for. They're struggling to make some connections. They're struggling to find the internship that they're looking for, the job that they're hoping for. And how do we balance that? You know? What might you say to that student who's really struggling to find what they're looking for and how to see it from this perspective of abundance? Not only just see it, but how to act from a place of abundance, perhaps. 

[00:09:49,570] TONY CHEN: I didn't meet the alumni when I was a student. I really wish I knew it earlier. I think there's a lot of events, like very soon, where you could meet a alumni. For example, you can sign up to be a reunion clerk. And then you would be assigned a class, like a class of 1950, what year is this? 1954, or 1964. We're in 1969, or 1974. You could be assigned of the classes, and you're like, they're a clerk for them. So you make sure that everybody signed in correctly. Everybody can find their housing correctly. And that is just such a good way to meet alumni. Because all the alumni talk to you. They're so happy to be back and you're so helpful to them. They're all really, really happy to talk to you if have, like, career advice questions that you have. I think the thing that really clicked for me is when you see all those alumni, 50 years out of college, and they're still such good friends with each other. I think that's when I realized. I've got to make more Cornell friends. Because after 30, 40, 50 years, I'll still be friends with them, and then it's a wonderful friendship when it's over the lifetime, and then you see them like we go through different jobs, go through different life cycles, their kids graduate from high school, and you just see a lot of different things over time. So I wish I was a reunion clerk. I think that's one good way to tap in. And another way to tap into the feeling of abundance is go going to more Cornell events. There's events all around the world right now. And then if you go anywhere in the world for the summer, there's always going to be a Cornell event somewhere nearby. So  I recommend you going to event events. I think like for example, if you're in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, there's a very good crab feast coming up. I love the crab feast. They go to the beach. They have, hot dogs, they have crabs, they have beer, it's a very wonderful event. And like 200-300 Cornellians go to that one. So yeah, that's coming up, I think on June 23. That is an example of an event to go to. There's also, like, Boston, for example, they have their annual meeting. The head of the Botanic Garden at Cornell is going to Boston to speak about the Botanic Gardens. New York City has so many events, too, throughout the whole summer. You should meet more Cornelians over the summer, too. 

[00:12:05,935] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I love your perspective about the friends that you make in college, whether they're alumni or they're in your very same class. You know, they stay with you for forever if you're lucky. That's certainly the case for me. 35 years later, me and my first week, bestie we're still hanging out all these years later. And I think that those are important connections for all of us to make. And so with all of this energy and this idea of abundance, I love this framework that you have, Tony. We wanted to ask you, too, about what do you see, what do you hear, in these conversations when all of these people are gathering together, about how Cornellians are changing the world for the better? How are they helping create a sustainable world, better world, in whatever way that might look? What are some, a story or two, that you've heard? 

[00:12:59,180] TONY CHEN: I really like Cornell's motto, "Any person any study". I think it's really, really good. The world is like, very unfair. A lot depends on where you're born, who you're born to. Like, a lot of it depends on that. And education is a way to make the world a little bit more fair. So even if you're not born, in one of wealthier areas, and even if you're not born to wealthier parents, you can still come to Cornell. You can still come to Cornell, you'll fit right in, and you'll still be very successful afterwards. You can still pursue any career afterwards. I think that's something that I admire a lot a lot about Cornell. I think that I think that you make the world a little bit fair. You'll have a lot more ideas coming in on how to solve different problems, and then you can go out afterwards and solve those. I think one worry I have with "any person any study" is that sometimes in a lot of different things that you try to do, it's not enough. Just studying a lot doesn't get you very far in a lot of careers. You have to have the network, too. So to the point, just going to Cornell is not enough. You have to have the Cornell connections afterwards, too. So, any person, any study, any friend. It goes on after you graduate, you still make more friends. So like right after you graduate. You're not done making Cornell friends yet. You can still make more Cornell friends. So, for example, if you go into paralegal and want to go to law school, you can come to Cornell events and meet lawyers and learn about the different lawyer practice areas. So by time you go to law school, you know which practice area you would like. So if you're starting out as an engineer and you're trying to figure out whether you want to go down a path of managing engineers or you want to go into a more technical role, you can come to Cornell events and talk to Cornellians and learn about different trade offs between the two paths. You're not done making friends after finishing Cornell. You can still make more friends relevant to your career and that will help your career. So it's not just the friends you made from before, there's friends you make in the future too. So Cornellians come from all over the place from everywhere, and then afterwards, they can be successful in any career trajectory that they choose to go in. 

[00:15:04,280] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I'm so excited that you said, "any person, any study, any friend". That's amazing. It resonates with every single Cornellian. And then your addition "any friend" talks about the networking. You know, this is part of who we are here, right? Helping each other out, getting through our studies, getting through our jobs, finding inspiration out there in the world from other people. I just love that addition that you made to the motto, if you will. 

[00:15:36,380] CHRISTA DOWNEY: I love it. I love it. So there's so much good advice here, and uplifting advice for the young people who are still trying to figure out,  who are their connections? How do they tap into this network? And what does that look like? Where to begin? I'm wondering if someone wants to connect with you. Is that something you're available for? I mean, are you open to meeting any student who wants to reach out and talk? 

[00:16:05,280] TONY CHEN: I already talk to ten a day right now, every day. And then, during, like, the layoffs, like two years ago, I was talking to like 25, 30 a day, every day. I try very hard to meet every Cornellian. It's very important to meet every Cornellian. 

[00:16:21,530] CHRISTA DOWNEY: I love that. We're going to include a link to your LinkedIn, and I'm guessing that is the best way? 

[00:16:26,550] TONY CHEN: That's the best way to reach out to me, yeah, and I post a lot on LinkedIn about Cornellians, too. And then, one recommendation that I have actually, is when you start building your network there's like, if every person is like a node, like, everybody's a node, and you're trying to connect different nodes with each other, with lines. You have a node and a node here and you draw a line between the nodes, it's good, that's way you start out. You start drawing lines between your node and the other person's node. And you end up with a lot of lines. But it's hard to maintain when you have like 300 lines it's really hard to maintain those lines because you have to, like, once a year, you have to catch up with each line. And then the 300 lines that you have to maintain. So that's like a one a day every day, and then you end up running out of time. Like, as your network grows, it's more, think of it in terms of boxes. Rather than having a line of maintaining each individual line, you have a box of nodes. So, Cornell for example, is like a big box of nodes. It's easier to maintain boxes rather than lines. Because if you go to reunion every year, for example, you automatically reconnect with like 100 people with just one event. Walking around, you reconnect with a lot of people inside that box. Then if you like if you're part of the Cornell Debate Team, for example, for the Debate Team Sam Nelson goes out New York City. He has a lot of different events around debate. So that's a good way to maintain your box of nodes. If you're on a sports athletic team, if you're on - I was part of Risley and every December we have our Risley get together, our Holiday get together on Zoom. And like the founder of Risley Residential College would come and everybody would share their little Risley stories. That's a good box as well. Rather than thinking of each connection as a line, think of it as a box. And you should always come back to reunion, always come back to all the different events around each of the groups. That is easier to maintain. Maintenance is very important for relationships. 

[00:18:19,805] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Thank you, Tony. I'm going to start using that one, too. I mean, I hope that every student listens to your podcast, and also as I talk with students about their networks, I do think for many people, it's overwhelming to think about how do I keep up with these relationships? And the way that you talk about it as boxes and more from a community perspective. I think is both, you know, takes away some of the time and energy and, you know, all of that to maintain, and also can make it more lively and, you know, comfortable, and smooth and inspiring. More conversations can happen. I think there's a lot to this. That's a great nugget of advice. 

[00:19:02,310] TONY CHEN: I always try to do events are recurring as well for that reason. If it's a recurring event, like every two weeks, we have the Zoom call mixer. Every month, we meet at a food court in New York City. Like, every week we do the crossword together. It's all recurring, week after week, after week after week. Yeah, that really helps maintain the box because if you just come to one, and in like a couple of months later, you come to another one, you'll see a lot of the same people again, so it helps you maintain that box. I think it's very important to have these recurring events that happen again and again. Reunion, for example, every year since 1908, we've been coming back to reunion every year. Like that's a good example of a box. 

[00:19:42,820] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: I'm really interested in how, so even though I'm an instructor and I do work like this, I am an extreme introvert. I get very nervous meeting new people, although I mask it very well. I look like I'm fine, but on the inside, I'm like full of anxiety or I'm extremely tired or whatever it might be. So it's really, really difficult. And I love these casual inroads that you've created for people, like the crossword event. I'm completely drawn to that idea. And so for people like me who have a really hard time, who are stretching themselves to do networking, do you have any advice for those kind of folks that it's a little bit difficult to dive in the deep end? 

[00:20:31,035] TONY CHEN: The one thing I try very hard to do, like at the food court events, is I always circle around and look for people who aren't talking to anybody, might be a little shyer. And I try very hard to learn more about them and then connect them with other similar people within the event. So I try really hard to make sure everybody has a chance to talk to people. I think I think that might be one way to help the more introverted people. 

[00:20:55,980] CHRISTA DOWNEY: So when the introverts show up at events, they should look for you. 

[00:20:59,985] TONY CHEN: Yeah, that way they can connect. 

[00:21:01,870] CHRISTA DOWNEY: I have a question for you. So what class had the greatest impact on you when you were a Cornell? 

[00:21:07,470] TONY CHEN: There's a lot of things that stand out. After the fact, I realized how helpful they were. One thing I did was the debate team. That helped a lot. It helped with, like, a lot of the communication skills. It also how to form an argument, how to listen to the other side, and respond. That was very good practice. Another really good thing was EARS training, empathy, assistance, and referral. I think the EARS, that one was really good too. I took the level one training, and I took the level two training. There, you learn how to be a good listener. You listen really hard. Try not to judge, just listen very hard, and then try thinking through how are they feeling, the way they're feeling. Then I just very good practice as well. 

[00:21:47,200] CHRISTA DOWNEY: This is great. I imagine these two things, whether you've thought about it, you know, maybe helped lead you in the direction to where you are now. And so I'm wondering when you were younger, maybe as a child, or maybe as an incoming first year student at Cornell, what did you imagine yourself doing for your career? 

[00:22:04,050] TONY CHEN: When I came in, I only knew I liked math and physics. I began applied engineering and physics because they had a class called Mathematical Physics. A great class. I love that class. Beautiful. Through Cornell, I did a lot of other things. I lived in Risley. I did performing arts there. I did a law and society minor. So I learned about all the different laws in societies and the humanities. I did research with the Sociology Department. So as I learned a lot about networks and sociology. I did debate team with all the government majors and policy people. Really, help me expand and get a feel for what more I like in addition to just math and physics. Cornell was very helpful for that. Ever since I graduated, I never used applied physics afterwards. I never did integrals ever again. I've always wondered, like, how it helped. I was thinking about it this morning. I realized that in a career, you build up intuition, you build up skills, and you build up relationships. So intuition, skills, and relationships. If you want to get real really good at something, you have to build up intuition, skills, and relationships to do that one thing really, really well. At Cornell the classes, the lectures, that taught a lot of intuition. You get a lot of good intuition about it. They give you a lot of backs and you have to get used to the facts. You have to get to understand the facts, internalize it, adjust it. And that's good for intuition. The skills from the lab classes, the lab classes give you a lot of skills. So how do pipetting and how to do the programming, how to build the semiconductor thing in lab class. And the relationships, I got that from the clubs and the other activities I did. You learn how to build up intuition. You learned how to build up the skills, you learned how to build up the relationships. And then after that, well, like, in the real world, you start to choose, like a place that you want in an industry that you really want to be good at. And once you choose that industry, you got build up the intuition, the skills and the relationships. For me, for example, I really want to connect all the Cornellians with each other. So I try very hard to build up the intuition around it by meeting every Cornellian, by learning everything about all the different Cornell events. So I build all the intuition. Just having a list of classes, having a list of facts isn't enough. You have to really internalize the build intuition on what Cornell are doing, what Cornell is doing. And then the skills, is like the marketing, like get the word out about different events, you've got to get the word out about different things. I got organized events. That's another skill. Another skill is like talking and listening and trying really hard to build a relationship with everybody. So that's the skill side. And then the relationship side, I guess I try to meet every Cornellian, all different age ranges, all different majors, all different places around the world. Those are relationships. And because I build up the  intuition, the skills and the relationships for it, I can connect Cornellians a lot better this way. 

[00:24:46,910] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Thank you for that. I don't even know what to expect for the answer for this next one. What do you do to relax and have fun and re-energize yourself. 

[00:24:58,190] TONY CHEN: So it's mostly just meeting Cornellians. I like changes in scenery, so I come to Ithaca. I love coming to Ithaca. A lot of times the big cities like DC, New York, Boston, have a lot of things happening all at once. Whereas Ithaca, it's like, much more manageable. That's a good way. Coming to the reunion, I think that helps a lot. Well, one thing I actually try to do, I try very hard to do is I try very hard to systemize things. It's like, the analogy I use is like, if you're juggling, you're juggling like three things at once, I have like three balls in the air. You've got to remember, you have the red ball, the blue ball, and the yellow ball, where those two other balls are. But once you have, like 20 balls in the air, then it's really hard to remember where each of the 20 is at. So instead, you have to think of it in terms of a system and each individual ball at a time. So rather than thinking where each ball is, you think right hand, left hand, or where to throw each ball when it does come down, and then you create a little system. Rather than thinking of each individual ball individually. I do that a lot with my events, the recurring events, every two weeks. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to think when's the next Zoom call. I know it's in two weeks. Just like has been two weeks ago, just has been like four weeks ago. I think the systems help manage a lot of juggle. Like, the newsletter. Every month, I publish a newsletter. That helps a lot, too. It becomes like a system. Like, what day do I have my newsletter? It's at the end of the month, it's time to do the newsletter again. Systems that helps, like everybody to, like, get on the same schedule as well. That helps a bunch, too. So systemize. I always think in terms of system. It doesn't really help me relax, but it relieves a lot of the stress and to all that. 

[00:26:34,770] CHRISTA DOWNEY: You're engineering your life. I love it. 

[00:26:37,160] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: Yeah. A wise person told me many years ago that engineering gives you a systems way of thinking, and I think that you've just explained the benefit of that in this context very, very well. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm getting energy just listening to you and having this conversation, and I've learned about events that I didn't even know about. And so for that, if nothing else, I'm absolutely thankful. But your energy bringing together all of these people from all of the different majors, and just welcoming them back to campus, with your energy and the way that you want to hold all these people together, right given their time at Cornell. I just think it's a really wonderful thing that you're doing. And so the whole campus owes you a thank you as far as I'm concerned. 

[00:27:28,395] TONY CHEN: Like, I'm very, very fortunate to be a Cornellian. I'm very, very fortunate. I think, like, when I applied to Cornell I had no idea there was such a wonderful alumni network. And I'm very fortunate that I chose Cornell. I think that Cornell really brings a lot of people together from all kinds of different ways so that after graduation, Cornellians all still come together. I took classes with all kinds of different majors. I took classes with MBAs. I took classes with JDs, I took classes with Hotelies. Like it really brings people together. And I'm very grateful for having gone to Cornell. Like, I think after graduation, then it really sunk in and I was like, wow, I'm very fortunate to be a Cornellian. 

[00:28:06,495] CHRISTA DOWNEY: And we're fortunate to have you. Thank you so much for doing all of this, Tony. Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.