On the 27th of November, the Maryland is Coming to You event took place at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD. This event was specifically for Montgomery County alumni. The aim of events such as these is to deliver an informative and engaging event for Maryland alumni and donors. This event helps them gain perspective of what the University of Maryland’s projected trajectory is and how they can play a part in it.
President Wallace D. Loh greets alumni and donors at an evening highlighting the Fearless Ideas shaping the future of Maryland.
Approximately 400 alumni and donors attended the event, which included a welcome from Amy Eichhorst, Executive Director of the Alumni Association, remarks from Jacqueline Lewis, Vice President for University Relations, and a introduction from President Loh. The event also featured two speakers from the QUEST community. Dr. Joseph Bailey, Executive Director, and Akshay Guthal from Cohort 27, were both asked to speak about their experiences within QUEST and the fearless ideas that QUEST inspires.
Dr. Bailey gave an overview of QUEST and talked about how it helps to make a big school seem small. He also mentioned that within QUEST, we do 16 capstone projects a year that wouldn’t be possible without the support of alumni and donors.
Joseph P. Bailey, Executive Director of the QUEST Honors Program.
Akshay talked about how QUEST has influenced his time at UMD. He talked a little about his experience growing up in Montgomery County and how that influenced his choice to attend the University of Maryland, which his listeners could relate to. He then focused on his experiences with QUEST, specifically with the capstone project he completed in spring 2018. Akshay reflected on his speech, “I described my project with Northrop Grumman, which was creating a dashboard for managing maintenance requests. I talked about how we went on several site visits and created process flow diagrams before finally coming to a solution.”
Akshay Guthal, QUEST student.
There were other highlights throughout the evening as well. Akshay mentioned, “Besides speakers, they also had cool workshops put on by different groups on campus.” These interactive groups were centered around ideas in Drone Technology and Journalism, Ethical Hacking, Developing Inclusive Youth, Solar Decathlon and Fearless Flu Fighter. Each group had faculty and students speaking about the associated research. One of Akshay’s personal highlights was the campaign on fighting the flu. He mentioned, “One of the workshops was from the School of Public Health, which created a model that aids their research in transmission of viruses on campus.”
Dr. Bailey and Akshay mingling at the event.
All in all, we were honored to be able to highlight QUEST as one of the many examples of programs that enhance the community at the University of Maryland.