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Chomps, Convos, and Connections: QUEST’s Summer Happy Hours

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This summer, QUEST students kept in touch through the happy hours in New York City, San Francisco, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Seattle, which brought together students, alumni, faculty, and staff for a chance to connect, swap stories, and hang out over some yummy food.

Le in the middle, attending the DC happy hour.

Current student Anh-Mi Le, Cohort 43, attended the D.C. event along with her BMGT/ENES 390H team. “We just wanted to hang out and meet some alumni,” she said. What stood out to her most was how welcoming the alumni were. “I met a Cohort 1 alum who came back because QUEST had such a big impact on their life.”

Yang on the right in Seattle.

Over in Seattle for his summer internship, current student Andrew Yang, Cohort 42, enjoyed the mix of food and conversation. “It was fun catching up with QUESTees in the area,” he said. Talking to alumni in the startup space stuck with him. “They gave me a better idea of what it takes to be a good founder.”

Prof. Bardossy seated in the back left for the Baltimore event.

Professor Bardossy joined the Baltimore happy hour and enjoyed hearing from alumni across different cohorts. “Their stories about successes and failures are always fun,” she said. “There’s a lot to learn from the failures too.” She shared the enthusiasm that faculty and alumni have when hearing about the innovation that each additional cohort brings to the program.

Whether it was swapping advice, hearing about career paths, or just grabbing a bite together, the happy hours showed how much the QUEST community values staying connected.

Thanks to all of the alumni who helped plan these great events!

  • Samantha Taskale, Cohort 38 (NYC)
  • Michele Fried, Cohort 17 (San Francisco)
  • Tiffanie Choi, Cohort 36 (Seattle)
  • Abby Bond, Cohort 37, and Ishaan Kapur, Cohort 36 (DC)
  • Nakisa Rafiee, Cohort 36 (Baltimore)

Alumni Spotlight: Liam Mercer

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Mercer (left) and his Capstone team.

Two weeks ago, Homes for America, a non-profit affordable housing developer based in Annapolis, MD, closed its first project since Liam Mercer, a QUEST alumnus from Cohort 28, started a year ago. The project is set to work on rehabilitating a 154-unit community in Baltimore that has historically served the deaf and hearing-impaired population. I got the amazing chance to reach out to Mercer to talk further about his time at UMD and QUEST, as well as his life post-grad.

During his time as an undergrad at Maryland, he studied Operations Management & Business Analytics and Finance. He also completed a minor in Sustainability Studies and Real Estate Development. With so many diverse interests, Mercer sought out QUEST to join an interdisciplinary program that “was designed for all students to play valuable roles on each project team.” Mercer was also part of many different extracurricular organizations, such as Phi Chi Theta Business Fraternity, The Maryland Pride, Ballroom at Maryland, and Survivor Maryland.

Mercer dancing with Ballroom at Maryland.

Many of the skills gained through QUEST have been useful for his professional career. After graduating in 2019, Mercer worked on a 2020 presidential primary campaign, where his team was “always looking for creative ways to be as efficient as possible with our limited resources,” something that he learned during his time in QUEST.

At his next job as an analyst at RCLCO Real Estate Consulting in Bethesda, MD, Mercer was able to combine his business and real-estate development background to provide economic consulting services for real estate owners, developers, and investors. He recalled that the QUEST Capstone prepared him well for the client relations part of the job. “I liked the opportunities to use data creatively in an analysis,” he shared.

Mercer and his current boss submitting the LIHTC Application.

Currently, Mercer works at Homes for America as a development analyst. His work is focused on developing housing projects that are income-restricted and affordable within the Mid-Atlantic region. Excitingly, Mercer has led Homes for America’s application for competitive low-income housing tax credits, which would help to finance their developments in the state of Delaware. Mercer says that it was part of the company’s “major organizational goal to diversify where we work, and I was proud to have a leading role in the application.”

Being able to work with combating the affordable housing shortage within our country is an area that Mercer had previously worked on as an intern during his undergraduate years that he was excited to come back to. Looking back on his time at UMD, Mercer says that “one of the benefits of a large university is that there is an organization of like-minded people for almost everything.” Congrats to Liam Mercer on all of his success so far!

QUESTech Fair Recap

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On March 27th, QUESTech, one of QUEST’s student organizations, held their annual Tech Fair in Van Munching Hall. Since it was the week students came back from spring break, it was a fun event full of things to see and learn about, complete with some popcorn and cotton candy to snack on!

Students got to walk around and listen to presentations on different types of technology. Here are some interesting highlights of the presentations I had the opportunity to listen to!

Daniel Danko (Cohort 41) displayed some of his incredible 3D-printed projects, from chainmail to a light saber to a 3D-printed printer! He also showcased a mechanical set of eyes that is programmed to blink and swivel when it detects motion.

Danko (Cohort 41) showcasing his 3D builds.

Kaushal Janga (Cohort 42) presented on computer vision, extracting information from images and videos, and image processing. Janga talked about recent advancements in this field, such as deep learning and the incorporation of AI, as well as future challenges such as ethical and privacy concerns. There are many applications of this technology, such as augmented reality, medical imaging, and Google Translate’s photo function.

Melvin Rajendran (Cohort 40) taught about prompt engineering, which is how to frame prompts to an AI such as ChatGPT. He discussed how to word prompts so the AI gives a more efficient task performance, such as providing context to input data, separating the input text, and specifying what it should output. He then ran an activity allowing us to practice coming up with our own prompts.

Rajendran’s (Cohort 40) presentation on prompt engineering.

Meilin Yuan (Cohort 42) talked about internationalization, or i18n, as a frame of thinking. Yuan described how significant the barriers are for coding across cultures and making software adaptable to different languages, as well as cultural implications.

QUESTech also invited the Leatherbacks Combat Robotics club, who displayed a few combat robots that have competed nationally! These robots are built, designed, and machined by the club in Terrapin Works. While they did not have a live demonstration with the robots due to safety concerns, they showed us competition clips and told us to look forward to their 1lb bot competition later this month on Maryland Day.

Leatherbacks Club’s 3lb robots on display.

Overall, the event was a great success, and I learned a lot! Congratulations to the entire QUESTech team!

QUEST Goes Behind the Scenes at PepsiCo

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This past February, QUEST Corporate planned an exciting site visit for QUEST students to PepsiCo’s Cheverly Bottling Plant. This was an incredible opportunity for the current sophomores and juniors in QUEST to take a tour of the production floor and get a glimpse of the inner-workings of a factory operation.

The QUEST team outside of PepsiCo’s Cheverly Bottling Plant

Upon arrival, QUEST students got to hear from a panel of production managers and quality control specialists about what it’s like to work at a production plant. Then, after a little bit of safety information, they were ready to put on some hair nets and venture onto the production floor! Students were able to witness and learn about how the different types of soda that PepsiCo sells are bottled and packaged. They also learned about all the flavors that PepsiCo offers and how they go into the drinks.

QUESTees suited up and ready to go to the production line!

Christopher Yeh, a sophomore Information Science and Supply Chain Management double major from Cohort 41 said, ”My favorite part of the site visit was being able to walk through the bottling production line! I’ve never seen anything like it and our guide took the time to explain how each section connected to the next. It was all super interesting.”

The site visit finished off with a Q and A session, which allowed students to gain more insight on the bottling process and PepsiCo’s Cheverly operations. It definitely sounded like a fun and informative site visit, so we want to give a huge thanks to QUEST Corporate and PepsiCo for organizing it!

QUEST Jets Overseas During Winter Abroad Course in Japan and Korea

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Over winter break, 29 students across the QUEST program immersed themselves in the cultures and industries of two East Asian countries through the study abroad winter elective.

This year, the program took them to tour the cities of Tokyo, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea with an overall theme of looking at innovation and automation and how they have been incorporated into the culture and society of the two cities. Over the ten days, the class allowed students to dive into the cultures of these cities, as well as hear from representatives of numerous companies. 

Watching a matcha tea ceremony

The class visited larger well-known corporations, like Nissan and Samsung, as well as some start-up companies across multiple industries. 

The class at their site visit to SBS

I was able to talk to Shareen Ahmad, an Operations Management and Business Analytics and Supply Chain Management major from Cohort 41, who went on the trip. Her favorite site visit was to Astroscale, a space debris removal company. She found it inspiring to see their work towards sustainability. “It had a lot of legal, financial, and social considerations, and I loved their passion for taking on such a challenge,” she shared. Students even got to simulate the process of how Astroscale works to remove space debris.

Not only were the QUEST students learning about how business and industries worked, but they also got to see firsthand the social and cultural impacts. Students were surprised to see the difference in culture compared to the US. As Ahmad put it, “There was a big focus on social harmony and collectivism.” 

Overall, many students loved being able to interact with the local cultures, seeing cafes, shopping districts, food markets, and lots of entertainment! With the destination of the winter course changing each year, there is always more for future QUESTees to experience abroad. For more photos from the trip, click here.

QUEST Corporate’s Mentorship Program Launches its Fourth Iteration

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The QUEST faculty and staff actively enable and encourage students to take advantage of our extensive alumni network, which includes over 1,500 alumni. Sometimes reaching out can seem daunting to students, but QUEST Corporate’s mentorship program helps. Entering its fourth year, this program pairs QUEST students with an alumni mentor working in a field that matches their career interests over the course of a semester.

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