GRIP: Research Assistant at the University of Auckland in New Zealand Cover image: Waiheke Island I made my own bespoke fragrance in Auckland, and it smells like a sperm whale’s vomit. After many rounds of blind-testing over 70 different scents, I chose a base note that was sweet, musky, powdery, and particularly marine, thinking it…
GRIP: KK Fund Humanoid robot showcased at Intel’s booth. There is a moment, somewhere between the third founder meeting of the day and the walk home through streets still warm from the afternoon, when a word you have used a hundred times stops meaning what it used to mean. This summer, that word was technology.…
GRIP: GRIP: Wine, Heritage, and Hospitality in Porto, Portugal The entire cohort at Quinta da Gricha in the Douro Valley, during a wine tasting, lunch, and tour of the vineyard/winery and their winemaking operation—fermentation tanks, aging facility, etc. One of the most valuable aspects of my GRIP experience has been completing a full-time internship at…
GRIP: Wine, Heritage, and Hospitality in Porto, Portugal Dusk along the Douro River with traditional rabelo boats and the Dom Luís I Bridge. Somewhere between my first and last walk down to the Douro River, a place I had never lived started to feel like home. When I first arrived in Porto, I was still…
GRIP: PR and Marketing in Bangkok When I first arrived in Bangkok, everything was red. The heat, the traffic, the crowded streets. In other words, it matched how I felt: excited, overwhelmed, and a bit unsure. I was tempted to just hit my brakes, but the words “tomorrow” kept turning into “today” so fast. Each…
GRIP: Entrepreneurship in Buenos Aires Cover: This is me in a popular spot for watching football games within a crowd of fans watching one of Argentina’s games this world cup. The best sport in the world is unequivocally football. If it were a nation, it would be the largest on Earth, and if football were…
GRIP: Business Development in Singapore Cover: Participants painting traditional Peranakan-inspired ceramic tiles during a cultural workshop in Singapore. It is common for Singapore to be associated with skyscrapers, finance, and innovation. But among all the glass towers and modern structures there are also some stories that go back generations. One of the most memorable experiences…
GRIP: Legal Research at University of Minho Law School (Braga, Portugal) Cover: Picture from my first evening out, offering pasteis de nata, with a sign reading: “Teach me something in Portuguese and I will give you a pastel de nata” My greatest motivation for choosing GRIP in Braga, Portugal this summer was an opportunity for…
GRIP: Engineering Research in Aachen, Germany Cover photo: The sunset over Lousberg, which was near my dorm for the summer. After ten weeks at RWTH Aachen University, training in electron microscopy, and exploring Germany and many surrounding countries, the last week of the UROP International Program finally came. Suddenly, what felt like a summer that…
GRIP: Business in Stethy Cover photo: Hiking in Australia’s Blue Mountains There is a beach five hours south of Sydney where the sand is the whitest in the world. Somebody measured it. There is a number for it somewhere. We got there on a Saturday with a sunburn on my neck and a work week…
