Networking on the Green: Bay Area Golf Club Builds Career Connections
Align students Aaron Chen and Gio Ong started a golf club to help Northeastern Silicon Valley campus students network
Members of the Bay Area Golf Club at a recent meet up. (Pictured: Aaron in blue at center, Gio second from left in shorts)
One of the first things Aaron Chen was invited to do when he arrived in the Bay Area was to go golfing. A friend put him in a group chat to organize their day out, along with seven or eight people he didn’t know. “So I did what any normal human being would do when put in a Facebook group,” he said. “I stalked everyone’s profiles.”
One in particular caught his eye. It was a computer scientist at NVIDIA. “That was the summer they really blew up because they were making all the GPUs and chips needed for large language models,” he said.
At the golf course, Aaron and the NVIDIA employee got a chance to chat, and later, the two became Facebook friends. “It was through golf as a medium that I got to network with this person and get that connection,” he said.
A golf club for students in tech programs
When he met fellow MS in Computer Science, Align student and golfer Gio Ong on orientation day, the idea of starting a golf club for Northeastern Silicon Valley campus students began to take shape. “Our campus is career-driven,” he said. “I thought it would be good to start something for networking.”
Today, the Bay Area Golf Club has thirty members, all students in the campus’ tech programs. They meet weekly at the San Jose Municipal Golf Course, just 15 minutes away from campus, to practice their swings.
Everyone’s welcome. “We try to make it enjoyable for people of all skill levels. People who are really good can focus on doing their thing whereas we spend more time with people who have just started,” Aaron said.
Best of all, you don’t need any gear to join. “We understand that that’s one of the biggest hurdles, so we just lend out clubs.” Aaron brings a set he borrowed from his cousin who lives in the Bay Area; Gio had a set and bought a second one in a garage sale, and now they all share.
Aaron said knowing even a little bit of golf can help someone in their career. “It’s a way to get people out to a meeting that you might not have gotten if you tried the normal route.”
Golf’s hidden perks: nature and deep conversations
But golf isn’t all about work. “The scenery is nice. You can talk — you’re not sweating over each other, fighting for a ball. You’re basically in nature and you’re walking most of the time,” he said.
For students in tech programs, it’s an opportunity to spend much-needed time away from screens. It can be tempting, for Align students especially, to grind through coding assignments without taking breaks. Recently, Aaron experienced “programming fatigue” after coding for ten hours straight. “I felt on the verge of burning out and my eyes were sore for, like, a week.”
When students get out to play golf, they can relax in nature and get to know one another. “I guess that’s the great thing about golf. You can talk about bigger topics because you have that downtime in between. Two people waiting for someone to hit the ball can have a nice, deep conversation. Golf paves the way for those conversations to happen.”
Selling others on golf
But the perks of golfing aren’t always obvious, especially to young people from countries where the sport isn’t as popular. To sell other students on the sport, Aaron and Gio threw a launch party where they played golf on the Nintendo Switch.
“The game is a simulation, but the overall feel and rules were all implemented correctly,” Aaron said. “And I brought my little putting practice mat so people could actually feel the club and the weight of it and practice. That day we hit 30 [members].”
After a successful first semester, Aaron and Gio have exciting new plans for the club. Starting March 1st, an instructor will attend meetups every two weeks to help members improve their skills.
In the future, they want to invite tech industry professionals to play. “I hope we can get tech people to come out with us, like my first experience with the NVIDIA guy. But our main goal is to teach students the game first,” Aaron said.
The Bay Area Golf Club has already helped him land a job — albeit indirectly. “The head of Student Services referred me [to a campus position], knowing the work I’ve done with the golf club.”
As Global Recreation Ambassador, Aaron is now overseeing sports and wellness activities in general, ensuring students at Northeastern remember to take care of their mental and physical health.
To sign up for the Bay Area Golf Club, fill out this form; or reach out to Aaron ([email protected]) or Gio ([email protected]) to find out more. On March 1, 2024, the club is holding a golf lesson and students are encouraged to sign up.