I spent last week in San Francisco. I didn't leave my heart there but the entire trip was indeed heartwarming.

I was there with members of the Stuyvesant Alumni Association for a StuyCS/Tech meetup. As one might imagine, many tech inclined graduates from any school end up in the Bay Area and Stuy is no exception. Sure, the majority of StuyCS grads stay in New York and help drive New York's tech sector but plenty decid to "go west."

We had a terrific meetup on Thursday with around 125 attendees - mostly my former students but a few older tech alums from the early 90s, 80s, and even earlier. The meetup was amazing and it meant a lot to me to see so many friends, friends who I don't get to see nearly often enough. Of course, the problem is that it was something like being a parent hosting a Bar Mitzvah - since you know everyone there, you don't have a chance to spend quality time with anyone - it's mostly drive by greetings and at most a minute or two with any given person at a time. Still, I had a great time. Around the event, I was able to have a dinners with just a few former students but of course, I didn't have enough days to have the number of small group gatherings as I would have liked.

This got me thinking about communities and alumni communities in particular. After a career in teaching that lasted 33 years, the StuyCS family might be the single thing I'm proudest of. Interestingly enough, there's nothing else like it at Stuy. I'm wondering if there's anything like it from other schools.

Like any school, each graduating class is a coherent group - some will be more active, some less but that's the typical unit - the class of XX. They all have the usual five year reunions and maybe other periodic events. Not much crossover though, if any, between the years.

StuyCS is different. It's a network of people who took the StuyCS classes regardless of whether they went into tech or not spanning the years. It also includes older Stuy graduates who are in tech but graduated prior to my starting Stuy's CS program and Stuy grads who found their way to tech after graduating. As a result, we also have lawyers, doctors, authors and more as part of a community who's graduation years start in the 70s and continue through this past year.

At Stuy, leaving CS aside, there are two other groups that I would have figured would have a similar network - Stuy's Chorus - a program that accommodates a couple of hundred kids a year and spans all four years at Stuy. There are chorus classes and they also do special events in addition to the usual at school concerts. The other is Stuy's Speech and Debate program. Smaller, but still spans the grades. I believe there's at least one S&D class and there are after school meetings and practices and plenty of events and trips. For most of the past three decades, each was led by a top notch teacher with a strong personality - someone who could really hold things together and drive the programs - far more together than I ever was. Stuy has a few other sizable communities like the theater community or maybe one of the sports teams but these two would be the one's that I would expect would have a strong, active, coherent alumni network.

Surprisingly, at least to me, Stuy Chorus alums might be connected to their fellow chorus members but not, for the most part, spanning the years. They feel an allegiance to Stuy's chorus but mostly if not entirely withing their class. Speech and debate seems similar, at least to me based on my discussions with Speech and Debate grads.

At the meetup, a few StuyCS members noted that we're the most active and coherent Stuy alumni group. Active meaning connected with each other and willing and able to help each other across the years. We wondered why, particularly since we're probably the most socially awkward group of grads.

It was posited that yeah, we're socially awkward but we're all socially awkward so somehow we fit together and it works. This sounds plausible.

Maybe it's because we have critical mass in a couple of locations - NY and San Fran. Maybe, but then NY has critical mass for any Stuy alumni group.

Another possibility is that so many StuyCS people went into the tech field so there's a direct professional commonality and a pretty direct way people across the years can help each other. Maybe. Not many chorus members are professional singers.

I'm not really sure.

We're also an interesting group because we're not affiliated with Stuy's alumni association. We grew organically. In the past, under earlier Alumni Administrations, I actually avoided working with them but now, the current crew is top notch and I'm hoping to bring my community and the official Alumni group closer together.

As I mentioned, I'm really proud of this community. I'm wondering if other schools have had similar groups develop. If so, that's awesome. If not, well, it's never too late.