Living the dream while being in Quarantine
A semester-long journey at UC Berkeley
Finally! The Semester has come to end and I feel like it passed by in the blink of an eye. In this last blog for the course Into to Silicon Valley, I’m pretty excited to share my journey as a Startup Semester Student.
I embarked on my journey to the bay area on 26th December 2019. This is my first experience traveling out of the home country and these beautiful scenes which came across during my journey to SF were remarkable. Once I landed and as soon as I stepped out of the SFO airport, I still remember those chills which I experienced on being introduced to this beautiful dreamland of tech for the very first time. I’ve spent my initial month traveling to various places, exploring the culture of the bay, and creating cherishable memories.
Few of my most favorite experiences include:
Saying goodbye to 2109 while experiencing the fireworks of the bay!!!
These amazing scenes captured at Embarcadero, San Francisco still run fresh in my mind.
Living through the enchanting views of the SF Bay every single weekend during the month of January.
Every time I was at the bay tremondous amount of hope and confidence pumped up thrrough my veins!!
Pizzas!! Pizzas and more pizzas. Nothing could keep me away from them
Visiting our very own rival stanfurdd!!
Not being diplomatic about this but the stanford campus has given me kind of a resort vibe rather than an educational serene.
Long Risky Hikes!! The most thrilling part of all
Before coming to Berkeley, I always aspired to go on day-long hikes but never got an opportunity to do that in India. These hike experiences with my fellow startup semester students were the best moments of my life.
Experiencing the U.S basketball ecosystem
This was one my of best experiences at Berkeley. It was my first time watching professional basketball in a stadium. Even though I come from India where Cricket the only sport which is highly valued, I was that one rare basketball fanboy, and thanks to SCET I got this opportunity to watch the match between Cal and Arizona State University.
Emerging as the first prize winner in the world’s largest hackathon held at San Francisco while competing with employees from Apple, Google, Facebook.
This is definitely my most remarkable achievement during the startup semester, where I participated in a 24 hackathon competing with more than 200 teams.
Visit to Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
I’d love to use this opportunity to thank SCET and our course Instructor for sharing my blog across all of their social media platforms. Visiting LBNL has definitely been my most favorite experience at Berkeley.
Marina views in the night
Berkeley marina has been my go-to place this semester. Whenever I felt low or stressed, I used to immediately rush to indulge in these splendid views.
I was filled with extreme happiness getting to create lifetime cherishable memories every single day. Until….
Thanos snapped his finger and the entire world was forced into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. I just felt like all my dreams were shattered within moments.
My experience with courses at UC Berkeley
It’s the first time I’m experiencing the gamified methodology of teaching and highly interactive class structures. One of the best things about this program is you don’t have any exams nor you’re forced to do anything, All of the courses either project/activity-based and highly practical. For me, It’s been a thrilling experience working with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. I was pretty surprised by the way SCET program coordinators and professors have transformed us this semester. Being treated as a friend rather than a student by all of my course instructors, I was able to definitely push my efforts to the maximum possible extent.
Various projects I worked on this semester!
The Berkeley Index for Tenacity ( Data-X )
On these extreme occasions, I personally realized the Grittiest ones are the most benefited, let it be adapting to classes, battling the ailment, or even continually taking a shot at individual objectives. Aren’t we all in this together!, so as a component of our Applied Data Science course at UC Berkeley my companions and I took up a Behavioral Analytics project called BIT to quantify these fundamental pointers in an individual cemented upon statistical validations and give customized suggestions to expand upon.
This project was been sponsored and supported by the SCET center and is live at http://berkeleyindex.com/survey
VigorTrack ( Amazoogle )
I’ve been working on a project titled VigorTrack for the course Amazoogle, In this course, we focus on incorporating data-driven business models into a startup idea. VigorTrack aims to enhance the post-treatment engagement of patients with healthcare providers. This platform helps in preventive healthcare treatment and enables engagement with patients suffering from chronic diseases post-initial treatment.
The Amazin cane ( Technology Design Foundations )
As part of my Technology Design foundations course, which is focused on product ideation, design, and development. I worked on a high fidelity product to aid the visually impaired feel confident while navigating and engaging with the outer world. This product is a simple attachment to the white cane which helps them identify objects above overhead since they’re most vulnerable to head injuries. This project was been nominated as the “Best Design Innovation product” of the year by Jacob’s Institute of Technology. I can’t wait for this product to get into the market very soon.
What’s my perspective about the Startup Semester!
Well, if one aims to build a multi-million dollar company then this is definitely the place to be. No matter what background we’re coming from or at what stage of life we’re currently at. We just need to have that thriving passion in us, rest assured we’ll be driven along the way of advancing our idea/vision from stage 0 to 1. I was just a sophomore student with few technical skills prior to this program and I can arguably say things have completely pivoted after being a part of this, it has definitely groomed me to be a better person in this competitive world.
My final Reflections on the course Intro to Silicon Valley
Even though this course is offered for just one credit, this course has by far been the best of all this semester in my personal opinion. I loved the transition in this course that occurred once the lockdown was imposed and we could no longer travel to various places in the bay area. Of course, trips were something I was pretty much excited about but I never believed interactions with various people from the tech industry could be such huge sources of knowledge. As shared in my previous blogs, I’ve gained key insights that would hugely impact my perspective on seeing various things in the future. All in all, I feel sessions like these where we get to know about the journey of various companies/founders are highly worthwhile and should definitely be continued to be a part of this course along with the field trips for the upcoming startup semester students.
Our graduation day commenced today and I’d like to thank our course Instructor Rick Rasmussen and the entire SCET staff for allowing me to be a part of this amazing opportunity of a lifetime. Especially, these blogs which I had been writing throughout the semester have definitely helped me to add a new skill into my bucket list apart from Tech. And, as our professor suggested I would definitely be to consider content writing as a part-time role.
I’d like to sign off by sharing the pictures of how I expected my graduation to be this semester vs how it ended up due to the pandemic.
Curated by — Jaideep Cherukuri ( An Ex- Cal Bear) and signing off in our very own style “Go Bears!”
