Eoghan Martin
What a busy week!
After spending the weekend in San Jose for a job interview, Monday started with a day of hibernation in the library to catch up on work. In the evening we had our first Startup Weekend meeting with David Murphy. Next February a group of ESTEEM students will work with TechStars to run a Startup Weekend event bringing students together for a weekend of collaboration in building their own startups.
On Tuesday evening some ESTEEM students attended a dinner with Fr. Sean McGrath at Rocco’s Restaurant. Rocco’s lived up to its reputation as the best pizza dinner in South Bend and the conversation matched the quality of food with lots of political deliberation.
I spent the first half of Wednesday at the old Studebaker factory with my capstone thesis industry sponsor, CupPrint. It’s great to actually spend time in the office and manufacturing plant seeing how my thesis has real world applications. On Wednesday evening, the ESTEEM students put on their pitching caps and attended the IDEAS Challenge in Jordan Hall of Science. Here, Notre Dame students practiced pitching in front of a crowd and prizes were awarded for outstanding presentations - Dave Hardwicke earned best medical startup pitch.
Thursday involved a scramble between interviewing, presentation building and coding for my technical elective. My busy morning was countered by an afternoon in the Snite Museum for a yoga session. This session took place in the garden surrounded by amazing artwork and sculptures in what was left of the sunny South Bend October weather. In the evening the ESTEEM intramural soccer team managed to pull another win out of the bag with an 8-2 victory. We now await to see if we’ve made it to the playoffs.
Friday provided for some transport issues in the Irish house as our trusty van decided to take an unprecedented intermission. Hopefully we can resuscitate it before the winter weather hits. Until then, it’s back to Uber we go. Friday night was a hockey evening with a high attendance from the ESTEEM class. The beautiful Compton Family Ice Arena and Notre Dame atmosphere didn’t disappoint with ND coming out on top over Arizona State with a 9-2 victory.
It’s Sunday now and the heads are refocusing with most of the class defending the technical side of their thesis in the coming week. It will all be over in no time and next weekend will be our ESTEEM tailgate for the Stanford game. Hopefully, we can follow in the victorious footsteps of the ND hockey team and ESTEEM intramural soccer team. Go Irish!