Tech giants, startups, and In-N-Out

At the end of the Spring 2019 semester, I was given the opportunity to go on a trip with the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

This trip, dubbed the “Silicon Valley Experience,” gave a group of students the opportunity to visit the San Francisco area and learn about several different companies operating there.

I had a wonderful time with the group that went, and I learned a lot about the tech industry and the San Francisco area! Below are some of the highlights from the week.

The view from Lombard Street was great!

Silicon Valley Companies

A major part of the trip was visiting different companies in the area and learning about their operations and offerings. Ranging from startups to household names, I got to see many sides of the tech industry in Silicon Valley! Here are my experiences with each one:

• Saildrone is a startup company that designs and manufactures a fleet of solar and wind-powered drones. We were able to tour their manufacturing facility and learn more about their mission, which was really cool! Check out their website here!

• Trimble, Inc. gave us a tour of their offices and let us see some of the gear and technology they use to test their products. The tour culminated in a ride around the parking lot in a self-driving tractor!

• Lockheed Martin gave us the opportunity to tour the facility where solar panel arrays are manufactured for spacecraft, which was incredible to see! The size of the products and the scale of the operation was seriously impressive.

• Hewlett Packard, Inc. allowed us to tour their office space and view some of their most recent products. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the garage in Palo Alto that the company was born out of. This is truly where Silicon Valley began!

• Cisco Systems welcomed us to their impressive office space where we learned about the company’s mission. I enjoyed hearing about the history of the company and its vision for the future.

• Pariveda Solutions let us come into their San Francisco office and chat with the managers and developers. I learned a lot about the business model of a consulting company and decided that being a consultant is an enticing career path option!

The garage that HP (and Silicon Valley) was started out of!

San Francisco Sights

Of course, the trip wasn’t all business! The group had plenty of time to see the sights of the Bay area. Some of my favorite parts were:

• The Trolley Museum - I was amazed by the trolley system in San Francisco! It truly is an engineering marvel, one that still operates to this day. The museum showed the resilience that the project had in the face of earthquakes and other challenges. I also was able to ride one of the cars through the city, which was awesome!

• Computer History Museum - While it was a bummer that the Giants game we planned on attending was rained out, this museum was probably more fun anyways! It was incredibly cool to see the evolution of computing technology from the earliest abacuses to the most recent smartphones. The amount of ingenuity and dedication that went into the technology we all use today is easy to forget, and this museum reminded me how amazing it is.

• The Golden Gate Bridge - A tourist must-see! It was neat to see how passionate the people in San Francisco are about the story of this bridge, which makes the beautiful engineering even more amazing. We also got to explore the surrounding beach, and I was able to touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time ever!

• The University of Tennessee Alumni Association welcomed us to one of their chapter meetings! It was great to speak with professionals in the area and learn about their advice for careers and for living in San Fran. And of course, we could talk about how the Volunteer football team was doing!

Here I am at the Golden Gate bridge! The weather was a little chillier than I thought it would be in May!

In-N-Out

Having lived my entire life in the southeastern US, I have never had the opportunity to try In-N-Out burger. While my first experience was definitely great, when the whole group went back the next day I tried the “Animal Style” burger and fries. Let me tell you, this is a game changer. This is one of the best burgers I have ever had, and I will definitely have to make a trip back solely for In-N-Out at some point.

10/10 would recommend. Definitely get the Animal Style.

Conclusion

Overall, this trip was incredible both professionally and personally. It allowed me to experience different ways that software engineering can be applied in a variety of businesses, and spending time with everyone on the trip was so much fun! I would love to go back sometime soon!

Huge thank you to the UTK EECS department for giving me the opportunity for this trip!

The great group I was with!