Day 5: Final Presentations and Feeling relieved!

The final day is here and how!

After the crazily intensive work that we put in yesterday, that resulted in dreamless sleep for most of us, we presented our work today!

And oh how wonderfully it all turned out.

Marta and Federica were truly inspiring, seeing as how they worked on their presentation parts. And Romain and Jan were fabulous in how they tackled their parts with gusto and gave perfect answers to the judges' queries. I couldn't be prouder of our group.

As I later discussed with Jaco, the greatest challenge of them all was not the project topic and the immense amount of work required, but the exchange of respect that we acquired by the end of it. The language barriers, social stereotypes were all left aside by every member of our group, as we worked very cohesively. Cheekily put, that was the greatest biomimicry example that we can truly have. That all of us, independent organisms, worked together in order to convert all the input information through lectures and presentation criticism to churn out a concept of our own, which in turn should inspire the audience.

What I took back from this week long course, was the confidence and renewed faith in myself. That I believe that I can truly pursue a future in the field of research and academics. That I still have lots to learn from all that is around me. And, some day when I go back to TU Delft, I shall fondly remember my Athens Course here, and how it shall always be a watershed moment in my life.

Boddupalli