Her family had immigrated from Fujian, China, to New York City just seven years earlier and helping in the family business was just something that children were expected to do, she said. A few years later she enrolled in Brooklyn Technical High School, where she found herself intrigued by economics and concepts like game theory.

Following a Passion for Books

When it came time to choose a college, she chose the Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center, where she majored in global business with a concentration in digital media and technology. She finished her degree in December after just three and a half years. When she accepts her diploma with her classmates this May, she’ll become the first in her family to graduate from college. Next month, she’ll begin a paid internship with Penguin/Random House.

While the diverse student population of Brooklyn Tech convinced her that she wanted to stay in New York, it was the Jesuit principle of “men and women for others” and the relatively small size that attracted her to the Gabelli School.

“I felt like I was going to a school that was really aligned with what I wanted—as well as one that provided the opportunity for different career paths,” she said.

Living at home presented challenges, as the commute on the D train was an hour one way, but Chen made the most of it. It afforded her ample time to read and influenced her decision to apply for the internship with Penguin/Random House, where she’ll assist in international sales and marketing. The position will allow her to work in a field that she loves, and one that she has experience in as well, having interned in marketing with Amalgamated Bank in 2019.

“While I was in school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. One month, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do data analysis, and the next one I wanted to do something like finance. I just kept jumping around,” she said laughing.

When a student mentor asked her if she could imagine what she’d do for the rest of her life, “it was pretty clear that the answer was, books. I really loved reading, especially during the commute,” she said.

Helping International Students Adjust

Chen was an active presence on campus as well. As a Global Transition Assistant, she worked with incoming international students in August to help them adjust to life in New York City. Those weeks were some of her best memories of her time at Fordham.

“You’re meeting different people from different places and spending time with them, learning new cultures, and just having fun for a whole week—enjoying life before school starts,” she said.

She was also a teaching assistant for Career IP, a one-credit class for Gabelli School first-year students that Jennifer O’Neil, assistant director of Personal and Professional Development, described as “backpacks to briefcases.” O’Neil said Chen was so good at her job, she was like a stealth worker.

“You mention something to her once, and when you realize you forgot to follow up with her and ask her about it—she’s had it done for three days,” she said.

O’Neil said she was confident that Chen would she’d succeed no matter where she ends up.

“She’s just so pleasant to be around and can do so many different tasks that require a wide range of abilities. You don’t pigeonhole her and say, ‘Oh, she’s a finance person’ or ‘She’s a publishing person,’” she said. “She can do anything that she sets her mind to.”

For Chen, the past year has been an odd one, to say the least. The transition to remote learning meant that the hour of reading on her commute disappeared. And although she finished school in December, the pandemic delayed the start of her internship. But she has plenty of warm memories of Fordham. She said she will fondly remember carefree chats with Vin DeCola, S.J., assistant dean for the B.S. in Global Business, “talking about nothing but everything at the same time”—as well as his annual dumpling parties. And, of course, she’ll always remember her work with international students.

“Everyone participating every day together for a week before the semester starts? Yeah, those are some really fond memories,” she said.

The Gabelli School of Business seniors are both first-generation immigrants from Eastern Europe (her parents are from Hungary, his are Albanian). Both were born at the same hospital in Manhattan and attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School on the Upper East Side. Both commuted to Rose Hill as first-year students and transferred to the Gabelli School at Lincoln Center their sophomore year, where they both majored in global business with a concentration in digital media and technology.

Both have opted to stay at Fordham to earn master’s degrees in computer science at the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS). And they’ve been a couple since their first year at the University.

It’s been an eventful path to graduation for each of them.

A Nudge Toward Something New

Although Marko tried her hand at marketing when they first enrolled at the Rose Hill campus, it didn’t quite click for her. Becaj suggested she give computer science a shot.

“Before that, I never really knew what computer science entailed. No one ever talked to me about it. Then I took Computer Science 1 and I just instantly loved it,” she said.

Not only did she take to it, but because she had AP credits from high school and took summer classes, she finished her undergraduate studies a semester early and enrolled in GSAS this spring to begin her graduate studies. This summer, she’s interning at Take Two Interactive, the makers of Grand Theft Auto video games; she expects to graduate with her master’s in December.

Becaj started out with a pre-med concentration at Fordham College at Rose Hill before transferring to the Gabelli School, and will be taking a little longer to finish his graduate studies. At the Gabelli School, he tried his hand at finance and marketing as well. He credits Marko with giving him the strength to try—and fail at—new things.

Feeding Off Each Other’s Successes

“I’m actually more comfortable with trying things when she’s around. I’m just a lot more comfortable doing it. She steps out of her comfort zone all the time,” he said. In their sophomore year the couple were finalists for the Consulting Cup, a semester-long course where student teams are tasked with investigating real companies.

Marko currently works part-time as a salesperson for BLU Reality Group, but is hopeful that upon graduation, she will be able parlay her Take Two internship, which is in infrastructure automation, into a position in that area. Becaj is considering working this summer alongside his father, who turned 71 this year, before plunging full-on into his graduate studies. Like Marko, he’d like to intern for a software development company.

Both students say they take inspiration from their families. Marko’s father moved from Győr, Hungary, when he was 14, and found work as a limousine driver and personal assistant to Placido Domingo. Becaj’s father likewise made his way to the United States when he was a teenager; he has been a superintendent for nearly 50 years at a building on the Upper East Side—a far cry from where he came from.

“My dad was from a family of very poor farmers. The first time he had shoes, I think, was when he went into the army when he was 17,” he said.

Needless to say, Marko and Becaj, who both received scholarships to attend Fordham, are grateful for the opportunities they’ve been given. Marko credited Michael Kadri, an adjunct professor of computer science, with turning her on to computer science, while Becaj said James McCann, a lecturer of finance and business economics, made business easier to grasp.

The Great American Story

Vincent DeCola, S.J., assistant dean for the B.S. in Global Business at Gabelli, is their “number one” though, they said, and not just because he helped them transfer to Lincoln Center.

“I hear stories about what he’s done for other students who have gone through difficult times, and he’ll just be there to listen or provide advice. That’s technically not his job, but he goes above and beyond,” said Becaj.

Father DeCola, for his part, has fond memories of the couple visiting him five times, by his estimate, over a year and a half to change either their concentrations or minors. He called theirs a “great American story.”

“They both have very positive attitudes. That’s one of reasons I never got tired every time they came to my office thinking about changing their career path. They’re always so positive and just pleasant to work with. I always found it cute that they’d come in together, and that they were still together,” he said.

“And if they decide they want to come back and get married, I wouldn’t mind if they ask for my services in that capacity as well.”

That was the message delivered by David Robinson, S.J., associate director of the Loyola Institute for Spirituality, on April 19 to an auditorium full of IT professionals from Jesuit colleges and universities.

His presentation, “The Role of IT in the Jesuit Mission,” was part of the 25th annual Conference on Information Technology Management, a three-day event held at the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. It was co-sponsored by Fordham and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Father Robinson was joined by three panelists from Fordham College at Lincoln Center: Harold Takooshian Ph.D., professor of psychology; Robert Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor of English; and Vincent DeCola, S.J., assistant dean of academic advising.

As far back as 1556, Jesuits utilized printing presses in Goa, Father Robinson said. In the 17th centuries, Matteo Ricci, S.J., conducted serious research at the observatory at Beijing University, he added.

“Technology, science and exploration were intrinsic parts of what it meant to be in Ignatian mission way back in the 16th century,” he said.

The panelists focused on how technology can be used to bridge gaps in communication—not just stay up to date with newest fad.

Takooshian asked attendees to consider what he called reverse mentoring.

“In the American Psychology Association, we felt that it was possible to take the natural gift that youngsters have for technology, which very often the old timers don’t have, and institute reverse mentoring,” Takooshian said.

Wasserman said that while some forms of technology—like those that allow students to collaborate on writing assignments—have helped, others times technology has been lauded for its own sake.

“The lesson I need to learn from my students is to get off the technical side of IT and realize that it is a communication medium,” he said. “When we see texting and Facebook and Twitter, we’re seeing expertise in a technology. But the message that has to emerge is that technology is about communication.”

Father DeCola noted that while the traditional debate over whether technology is dehumanizing still exists, concerns being raised today have some elements in common with the past.

“We all know the famous talk about ‘young people today,’ and it turns out to be a quote from Socrates,” he said. “Generational gaps have been around forever, and maybe technology is just the latest one.”

Don Tapscott’s Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (McGraw-Hill, 1997) has helped Father DeCola’s staff get a better sense of the role of technology in students’ lives, he said.

“It’s just the air they breathe these days,” he said.

Jesuit educators need not worry about technology replacing the critical role of the mentor—someone who has the ability to amplify and clarify context, Father Robinson said. There’s a false assumption that people can discover everything they need to know through Google and Wikipedia.

“Information is not knowledge; that’s one of the great disasters of the digital age,” he said. “We assume that if you have more content, you’re a better student, that if you have more information you are a more educated person.

“But it’s the geography of the learner and the learning that is critical in a Jesuit context. That’s precisely the point.”