At the bi-annual QUEST Conference on Thursday, December 5th, Cohort 30 presented for the last time as QUEST students. It was an evening filled with amazing presentations as the students shared their accomplishments and the work that they did for their clients throughout their semester-long projects.

QUEST clients this semester included Leidos, Middle River Aerostructure Systems, Northrop Grumman, Oceaneering, Sealed Air Corporation, and Thales.

After catching up with a few of the Cohort 30 members, I got to hear about their experiences leading up to the conference. “Collaborating with my peers and professors in the QUEST community has been immensely rewarding – I have had the opportunity to immerse myself in new experiences and continuously learn from those around me. Working with my 490H team this semester has been nothing different,” said Nikhil Modi. He continued, “Although we’ve had many late nights, faced many obstacles, and struggled at some points, the experiences we shared together have been invaluable to each of our personal and professional growth.” 

Every conference, two awards are given: Best Poster and Most Outstanding Capstone. This year, the Best Poster award went to Oceans 30 who consulted for Oceaneering. Alex Bergman, a member of the team said, “Our team put a lot of hours into this poster, so we were super excited and humbled to win. We wanted to create a poster that showed how interesting our client’s products and capabilities are, while also making clear all the work that we did. Best 490H team I could’ve asked for!”

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, the team that consulted for Sealed Air Corporation, won the Most Outstanding Capstone, which was voted on by alumni and QUEST faculty and staff. Shivani Krishnamurthy from the winning team said, “It was a really good feeling to win most outstanding capstone just because we were all so passionate about this project! I was super proud of my team, and we were all very grateful to have our project be recognized in that way! In general, all of the teams did such a great job, and it was clear that a lot of effort went into every project.”

Our newest QUEST members in Cohorts 33 and 34 also attended the QUEST Conference for the first time. The awe in our newest members reiterates how amazing QUEST’s students’ growth is throughout the program. “What’s really great about QUEST is not only do I get to practice teamwork with my team, I can also learn from all of the times I get to see other teams presenting,” said Stav Elazar-Mittleman (Cohort 33). He continued and shared what it was like to watch his older sister on the Sealed Air team, “Seeing Hadas’ team win was very exciting. I saw the effort her team put in to ensure the audience was engaged. They went the extra step from making great recommendations to working hard to present them to increase the likelihood of implementation. I know I have a lot of work to do to get to that level and am looking forward to it.”

Next in the line up is Cohort 31 who will commence their capstone experience. Aditi Balachandran (Cohort 31) said, “I have been going to the 490H presentations since the semester I got into QUEST (spring 2018), and it is insane that the two years have passed by so quickly… I am most excited to use all of the hard and soft skills that I have gained from QUEST in a real client-facing role. Cohort 31 is ready to take on 490H!”

Here’s to a job well done Cohort 30! We are excited to hear about how your clients apply your recommendations to their businesses in the upcoming months.