Saket Vora

Despite two hours of sleep, I found myself surprisingly refreshed. Greg, Win, and I got ready and went out to the lobby at around 4am. Cameron and Dr. Walsh were already there. I found out from Cameron that Austin had left just 30 minutes ago. Jessie later told us that he drove her and Kelly back from University Avenue and they ended up talking for a long time. Maybe under different circumstances something could have worked out…. Ten minutes later, we were heading to the San Jose Airport. After seeing our groggy faces in the lobby, Dr. Walsh said he’d opt for a 10am flight back for next year. I wholeheartedly agree. Once at the airport, team ARI and Tara took a quick photo with the white KIA van which had truly endeared itself to us over the past four days. The shuttle took quite a while to arrive, but the counter agent had all of our boarding passes ready so in less than 30 minutes we were at our gate. It still amazes me that the tiny airport of San Jose serves the tens of thousands of engineers working in Silicon Valley.

The flights were fine. Most people slept, though I couldn’t fall asleep. I was too busy thinking about the future and what I wanted to do after I graduate in May. This trip to Silicon Valley, and the things I learned while out here, significantly re-focused the direction I wanted to take after NC State. Some of us had a good laugh watching Dr. Miller demo the Gimp software program for Linux to Dr. Walsh by photoshopping a picture that Dr. Walsh took of Jessie while she was asleep on the plane. By 5:30pm, we had landed in Raleigh and the group started to catch their rides back home.

So with that, our trip to Silicon Valley came to a close. Many of us agreed that it would take a while for the significance of this trip to sink in. All of us were proud at what graduates of NC State have accomplished. The Valley cultivates a type of atmosphere that encourages creativity, risk taking, and boldly embracing the future. What can be done to bring that culture to Raleigh and NC State? What will be the next big idea? These are the kinds of questions many of us came away with and continue to ask ourselves.

On a personal level, what made this trip so special were the people. I must have laughed and smiled more these past four days than I have in a year. Credit must go to Dr. Miller, Dr. Walsh, Tara Britt, and Dave Mainella who let us truly enjoy this trip and even joined in on the laughs. Barbara Yde deserves special recognition. She worked so hard to keep contacts, handle the logistics, and coordinate everyone’s plans. Without her, the trip would simply not be the success that it was. Sincere thanks also goes to all the alumni that hosted us and to the EEP Advisory Board who helped make this trip have such an absurdly high benefit-cost ratio. Thank you for your continued support and contribution.