SOPHOMORE IMMERSIVE WEEK

“I think that what makes the immersive trip especially impactful for students is that it comes at the perfect time in the M&T academic journey. After two years in the program, M&Ts have developed a sense for how to link business and technology issues, while still having much to learn. By the end of sophomore year, we have nearly completed the Wharton core curriculum and fundamental engineering classes. This shared knowledge creates an opportunity for us to have nuanced discussions with the industry leaders who serve as panelists during the trip. During these panels, we get to analyze how those foundations are applied in the real world, so the trip serves as a great bridge between the fundamentals learned during the freshman and sophomore years and the specialized applications that we’ll study during our junior and senior years. One example that I found particularly compelling was how Roger McNamee’s talk on responsible innovation and data privacy during “Entrepreneurship Day” provided new context on the data-heavy marking tools and techniques studied in MKTG 101 (Introduction to Marketing) and gave increased weight to the classes I would take the following fall, EAS 203 (Engineering Ethics) and CIS 520 (Machine Learning). In fact, I believe that any of my peers would be able to cite a similar example of a panel, statement, or activity that linked together concepts across the degrees and added increased depth to what we were learning in school.”

– Dhruv Iyer M&T’21

“Immersive week was an amazing opportunity to see what my life may look like after M&T, and to do so with some of my closest friends. It was incredible to hear from some of the most successful people in the industries that tend to attract M&T students, and to present our ideas to executives at cutting-edge companies at the end of the trip. I also really liked that we heard from some people who took unconventional paths to their current positions. I loved being able to spend some time with some of the classmates that I hardly see when we’re on campus, and to explore San Francisco. Some of my favorite memories include: going on a scenic run from our hotel to the Golden Gate Bridge with a few friends, making s’mores over a bonfire at the beach on the last night, and getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the Tesla factory.”

– Mallika Yedla, M&T’21