Looking back and beyond - 21/05/2016
Exhausted, yet extremely fulfilled I sit here at the Bay of San Francisco with the best view one could wish for; the Golden Gate Bridge. It's an amazing sight (and engineering feat) and it has been an amazing study tour. The last three weeks have been one of the busiest and intense times of my life, which evidently has reflected itself in my sleeping behaviour. With the 21 universities and companies we have visited we have seen the many fields and facets of (electrical) engineering. We have seen exciting engineering like the high voltage lab at Waterloo university, innovation in its purest form in the living room at Upverter, boring engineers incapable of delivering a presentation where I don't fall asleep, game changers and engineers that are completely convinced of the power of their technology ("slurp").
At Cisco we met the business side of a large engineering company which might not have been the most spectacular visit and might have made some people allergic to the word "Internet of Things" but it has shown us that besides good technology (or bad technology) understanding business and being able to talk through anything are very important. Luckily, as Wilfred already mentioned, our study tour group is full of incredibly smart people that are definitely good with words which has been made evident by all the smart ass comments.
As true tourists we have eaten many hamburgers (and probably gained a few pounds), drank loads of beer even though it was outrageously expensive and would come to bite us in the ass the next morning and off course have made a ton of photos. We climbed the CN tower, ogled at the waitresses at Hooters and cheered for our new favourite baseball team: Lets go Blue Jays!!!
In the short nights we had, we have had the pleasure of getting to know the crazy sleeping behaviour of your bed neighbour. This varied from talking, lumberjacking through entire forests to practically jumping around in the bed. However, all the sleep that was lost during the night could be regained in the car rides or during business visits.
Somewhere halfway in our study tour Admin presented the exciting news that we had slightly more money to spend than we thought. This led to the craziest "throwing money over the beam" streak I have ever seen. As a result, I can now say that I have shot a small hand-canon and a M1 grand rifle, ridden quads through vast sand dunes, brute forced an escape room with our electrical engineering knowledge, visited the most notorious prison of American history and got whined&dined on a luxury cruise on the San Francisco bay.
Besides all the business visits and activities, I must say I have also really enjoyed the state of California. The people are super friendly, the vibe is laid back and the landscape is so divers and filled with amazing vistas. California features vast desert planes, high mountains, lush forests and a stunning coast line. All in all, a place I would certainly like to visit again.
Looking back on the study tour I think we have had an amazing, exciting and off course educational experience. Companies such as Xsens, Upverter and Gainspeed have inspired me to think about starting something for myself, accept the challenge and build something up from the ground. If only I knew what... Whatever happens I will always have the memory of this awesome study tour!
See you all back in the Netherlands!
By: Tom Stelwagen