ISEED Europe is done! This experience has delighted me in more ways than I could have ever imagined, from the people, to the food, to the professors, to the sights, to the class, there has not been a single element of this experience that I have not enjoyed, and I will be cherishing all the memories made in the program for a lifetime!
Personally, one of the best memories that I am taking with me from the program was when we were in Amsterdam, on one of our last days there, where we had to conduct interviews in the streets to get feedback from the prototypes we had developed. Right after we all finished carrying out said interviews we started parading the streets of Amsterdam while singing in unison without a care in the world. This was really a core memory for me. I sort of zoomed out at that moment and realized I was in a whole new different city, with a whole new group of people that I had known for less than a few weeks yet I had grown so fond of. However simple or silly this memory may sound like, I truly did have a blast and I will definitely be bringing it up whenever anyone asks about my ISEED experience.
Then, as a foodie myself, one of the things I enjoyed most about Paris was getting to try different foods that I had never before envisioned myself trying. Due to the multicultural nature of our group we decided it would be a fun idea to try foods from all of our different cultures! This included us trying Uzbek food, which I was not expecting to be as divine and scrumptious as it was! A splendid mixture of flavors filled my mouth with every bite I had, and funnily enough, one of the dishes we tried reminded me of a typical Spanish dish which I found rather interesting. In addition to the fabulous food we tried, that night has a special place in my memory as we also enjoyed a very lively and fun conversation, where we all shared stories about how our respective parents met and had a great time making connections within each story.
In regards to the actual program itself, I have enjoyed every single aspect this program has to offer, from learning the difference between zooming in and zooming out with Hesam, to learning to make defensible decisions with Dr. Wettergreen. I feel like the immersive nature of the program has helped me feel a lot more prepared when it comes to tackling engineering problems or working to determine a problem and why we are trying to find a solution for it. Similarly, I have enjoyed getting to improve my team working skills, and I was lucky enough to get to work with such amazing and talented individuals all throughout the program, which aside from making the process more manageable, also made it very fun and didactic!
Moreover, even though we had to battle screaming kids at sunrise and a lack of wifi in Paris, I would recommend this experience to every student that has even the slightest interest in stem, engineering, problem solving, or a desire to work in a team to make solutions to help others. I will be advising for Martel in the fall and I will recommend this program to all of my o-week kids! I genuinely could not be happier with how this experience laid out and all the incredible memories and new learning that I am taking away from this.
Curly duck signing out 🙂