Wednesday 12/21: Day 25
Final day. Final trip thoughts. Final dinner together. Final Craig’s wishing us a “good night my sweet baby angels.” My final one-on-one with the camera was analogous to opening the gates and letting the flood of emotions out. As we physically traveled the country from the Beast Coast to the Best Coast, there was an emotional & mental transformation that took place. A part of me was never truly comfortable switching from the life science field to the world of computers. Would I have to forgo the hours spent understanding the synthesis of alkenes to better understand how AES algorithm works? Through the interactions with the leaders, the answer was revealed to be: no! Just as Laidler from Day 23 said, being different was key to succeeding in the field. So many of the leaders we conversed with came from all sorts of varying paths such as anthropology, psychology, philosophy, economics, education, etc. And each found a way to make a niche for themselves by combining their previous fields with cybersecurity. With this new hope, I have identified the fourth and final piece of the crossroad where I envision myself being a pioneer in. Namely, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, and Chemistry. There is an old saying, “Before lunch, I cut the wood. After lunch I cut the wood.” This #CybersecurityRoadtrip acted as the lunch for me. It gave me the fuel, the energy required to go back to the “real world” and face what life has in store!
Packing up our suitcases was another emotional & physical (how did these things fit in the bag in the first place?!?!) challenge. Others kept on mentioning how we are leaving tomorrow to go back to our homes. However, for me this was a home. The bright green RV whose windshield wipers had a mind of their own, whose creaking floor boards made it impossible to move without awakening everyone, whose door would not open no matter HOW MUCH STRENGTH YOU PUT IN IT will surely be missed. Remembering how we often had to do, re-do, re-re-do the shots in order to please the film crew immediately made us smile and cringe. But yeah these same cameras & cameramen will be missed.
Thank you RoadtripNation, Thank you UMUC, Thank you Antwan, Emily, Craig, Mark for allowing me to be part of the #CybersecurityRoadtrip 2016. This past month has been a roller coaster ride filled with insightful wisdom into the industry, and into ourselves. I am very excited to start 2017 with the fuel & inspiration collected on this trip, as I move to my second last semester of graduate school and tackle my first internship in the field. #CybersecurityRoadtrip documentary will be released Spring 2017 & when we re-unite the gang at that time, it will be exciting to see how we have implemented the knowledge gained on the trip.
Feel free to keep in touch with the crew at
Twitter: Antwan, Emily, Mansi.
Instagram: Mark, Craig, Emily, Mansi.
HERE is an overview of the team, the route, updates from RoadtripNation
