All love stories are beautiful, and this is no exception.
[As much as I’d like to try, I can’t tell this story any better. This is direct from Tiffany, permission granted to share. -Dylan]
Hi all,
As most of you have already heard (or were involved in the planning), Richie and I are engaged! On Sunday, before Gonzalo’s EOY FEMBA Council party, Richie, Hasini, and some folks from the FEMBA office (Cedric, Bonny, Melissa, and Dylan) devised a plan to lure me to campus before the party and he popped the question on the balcony!
For those of you who haven’t heard our story, we actually met in November 2020 on a FEMBA admissions Zoom call (during the pandemic)! Richie was a FEMBA 2021 and the FEMBAssadors Co-President at the time, and he led a very engaging virtual AMA that kept me coming back to more FEMBA sessions. Eventually, I sent Richie a Linkedin DM to connect, and after an initial five hour call later, the rest was history 😊.
UCLA Anderson & FEMBA is such a big part of our love story because of how transformative the experience was for both of us. I was so lucky that he had gone through the experience, fully immersed himself in every aspect, and supported me through every part of the last three years of my FEMBA journey.
For some backstory and context, Richie is the one who supported me running as a first year rep in FEMBA Council and eventually stepping into the President role. He was also the one who encouraged me to take Professor Kramer’s class (I was a bit scared of the work 😃) and eventually TA and experience the Singapore immersion together! He was also the one who believed in me so much that he encouraged me to apply for the Wooden fellowship.
We both loved FEMBA so much that I had to follow in his footsteps and become a FEMBAssadors Co-President because we love talking about our experiences to prospective students. FEMBA was such a huge foundation in our relationship (even without overlapping years), and it was truly such a full circle moment to celebrate our engagement with some of you on campus this weekend.
I wanted to share and pass along some of my favorite pictures from this weekend and just thank you all for being a special part of Richie and my FEMBA journeys!
P.S. @Stafford, Dylan, you can definitely share our love story with prospective students 😊.
Best,
Tiffany Lin Fully Employed MBA Candidate | Class of 2024
FEMBA Council President
P.S.
From Dylan
OK. If you scrolled this far, you get a bit more.
Here’s some extra flavor I love about this couple and their story/ies.
A) Tiffany Lin
Like many of our rock stars, Tiffany was admitted to both Anderson and Haas. Richie’s [five hour!] FEMBAssador call not only ultimately led to their engagement, but also helped woo Tiffany towards UCLA where she brought her leadership as both a future FEMBAssador- and then FEMBA Council-president.
B) Richie Chang
Richie’s been inspiring us all since his first week at Leadership Foundations in August of 2018. Richie set a goal that week to meet every person in his class. And he was tenacious. He kept a list and greeted and shook hands and worked-the-room until he’d met every single member of his class. MBA programs are a lot about effort: his effort has been amazing for the six years I’ve had the honor of knowing him.
Richie also exceeded our expectations by pivoting successfully both industry and function, from pre-UCLA MBA as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Aerojet Rocketdyne, to post-UCLA MBA as a Senior Associate-Finance Transformation at PwC.
C) Hasini Sundaresan ’24
I cannot shout out Hasini enough. I’ve had the honor of working with Hasini and David Luong ’25 this year as FEMBAssador co-Presidents and they’ve done an AMAZING job. Our FEMBA applications are up 63% from last year, and up 36% from our five year average.
Hasini comports herself with grace and power and is always moving the conversation forward. Watching her map out the surprise for Tiffany–arranging nails and clothes and location and moment and coordinating about 30 people and keeping it all a surprise–Wow! That was an MPA, a Master of Proposal Administration, at a level I’ve never witnessed. Well played Hasini!
D) Lastly, a note about hanging out with high-aspiration people, about sharing success.
There’s some grandma wisdom:
“You want to catch a fish? You better go where the fish are.”
Tiffany and Richie “caught” each other.
Of course, UCLA Anderson is NOT a dating service…
…But…
We have every type of person here…
Tired of meeting people digitally?
Maybe it’s time to go where the fish are…