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Big Red Networking Platform Connects Cornellians

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Through CUeLINKS, alumni and students can gain professional insights, career advice, job leads, mentorship, and much more

By Melissa Newcomb

These days, Angela Lu ’13 works as a management consultant for pharmaceutical companies. But she has also served food, dealt cards at a casino, been a banquet host at a golf club, worked in Spain as an au pair, and—despite being only five-foot-three—staffed the door at a nightclub.

It’s a varied résumé—and the former ILR major is sharing the insights she has gleaned from her nontraditional career path with her fellow Cornellians on CUeLINKS, a platform for alumni and students to connect and network.

A headshot of Angela Lu smiling wearing a red blazer and black shirt.
Angela Lu ’13.

With more than 26,000 people currently signed up with profiles, the platform gives students and young alums the opportunity to ask questions of, get advice from, and be mentored by fellow Cornellians who are more established in their careers.

“Students shouldn’t beat themselves up over feeling like they need to pick the perfect path,” Lu observes, citing advice she has shared with current undergrads.

“Pick a direction and develop skills, and your future self will figure out the rest. It’s not your current self’s responsibility to stress about it.”

CUeLINKS profiles resemble those on LinkedIn, with fields like career history and interests. (In fact, new users who have LinkedIn accounts can import that data, so they don’t have to re-enter it.)

Find a direction and develop skills, and your future self will figure out the rest.

Angela Lu ’13

“LinkedIn is used for a variety of purposes,” notes Ilana Dimbleby, director of engagement initiatives in Alumni Affairs and Development, “but on CUeLINKS, you know you’re going to get a warm welcome, and find alumni who have volunteered to be there for other Cornellians.”

Heather Fortenberry speaks with an alumni about CUeLINKS at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference in February 2025.
Heather Fortenberry, assistant director for career exploration, chats about CUeLINKS at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference.

All CUeLINKS users can see the profiles of alumni—who currently comprise about two-thirds of total participants—while students’ pages are viewable only by fellow students and to the alumni they contact.

Users can search for potential connections by industry, major, location, hobbies, campus clubs, and more; there’s also a video chat and scheduling tool.

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Human Ecology grad Tracy Potter ’12, BS ’13—who lives in the Seattle area and works in an aspect of digital user experience known as interaction design—recalls chatting with a fellow alum who was looking to pivot to a similar career.

“It was really nice to make a Cornell connection with somebody in my region of the country,” she says.

“We had some great conversations about what path she should take, and I was able to connect her to a former colleague who’d begun a start-up.”

A headshot of Tracy Potter smiling wearing a blue sweater.
Tracy Potter ’12, BS ’13.

On CUeLINKS, alumni can indicate their availability to provide info and mentorship by selecting how many student messages they’re willing to receive per month.

There’s also a job board where alumni can post listings, and users can post questions to general discussion boards—anonymously, if they so choose.

It was really nice to make a Cornell connection with somebody in my region of the country.

Tracy Potter ’12, BS ’13

Past queries have ranged from “How do I deal with rejection in the job and internship search process?” to “How do I get paid to travel?,” with many generating dozens of responses.

Sara Roccisano ’02, an investment banker turned motivational speaker and author, notes that given her background, many students reach out with questions about getting into finance.

A headshot of Sara Roccisano smiling wearing a black sweater and pink beaded necklace.
Sara Roccisano ’02.

But Roccisano tries to have a deeper impact in conversations, encouraging them to “feel empowered, and be excited to embrace the world when they graduate.”

And she often underscores that in her undergrad days, student life in general—and job hunting in particular—was quite different, with resources like online networking with alumni yet to be envisioned.

“I like to remind the students that when I was on campus, we didn’t have cell phones or laptops,” says Roccisano. “It’s such an amazing opportunity to be able to have these true, heart-to-heart connections.”

(Top: Illustration by Ashley Osburn / Cornell University; all photos provided.)

Published June 11, 2025

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