Jack! Rose! BELFAST!

So you might be able to guess from my post title that we are in Belfast for a couple days and paid a visit to the historic Titanic docking station. It was both inspiring and a little haunting to see. On the one hand, we had the opportunity to stand in the middle of one of the 20th century's greatest feats of engineering, but on the other hand, we were standing on the last piece of land the Titanic was ever on before it sunk.

It's amazing how enormous this docking area was; according to Claire, our tour guide for the morning, it took 500 men 7 years to dig it out  by hand. Incredible. It was a little funny though, almost right next to the docking area was a modern day cruise ship which was easily two-three times the size of the Titanic. It was a not-so-subtle visualization of how far technology has come in over a century.

After our tour, we headed over to the Northern Ireland Science Park to listen to some really fantastic speakers, most of whom are entrepreneurs who combined their talents in both engineering and business into their start up company. My big takeaway from these set of lectures was that good leadership skills are especially vital in STEM careers. It is not enough to have tons of analytical brain power, it needs direction and vision. My favorite speaker of the day was Gary; he said that, as a leader, if you are the smartest person on your team, you're not doing your job right. It's not about the ego, it's about the solutions that will build a business. His presentation really resonated with me and I appreciated his perspective on how science and business can and should work together.

All in all, a very interesting day in Belfast. I enjoyed touring the Titanic and Science Park facilities, and I was also able to walk around the City Centre for a while. Even though Belfast and Dublin are only a couple hours apart, they feel like entirely different cities to me. For some reason, Belfast feels more like Denver (or America in general), whereas when I first stepped foot into Dublin, it was like another world. Just my observation for now, we are going on a nice long tour of Belfast tomorrow so I'm sure I will gain even more perspective then. Good night!