Jared Graham (ECE '12), Annah Biela (FYE '14) and Lindsay Moore (MDE '12) accompanied by Professor George Chiu, represented Purdue College of Engineering at the annual ICAMES (International Cultural and Academic Meeting of Engineering Students) organized by the Engineering Society of Bogazici University. Photo is of the group visiting MiniaTurk Stadium in Istanbul with their ICAMES guides. MiniaTurk is a popular tourist sight and has miniature versions of historic places and sights of Turkey.

Jared writes:  Where to begin? First I would like to thank EPICS for making the ICAMES trip possible. I had an unbelievable experience that I will never forget. I learned so much from this ICAMES experience but what I think was most important about this trip was the friendships that were made. I was able to go through this experience with many different people from very different cultures and backgrounds but we all shared one goal: to make the world a better place. Istanbul is an amazing city with many different things to do. I especially enjoyed walking down Bebek and enjoying the tremendous fruit waffles that we had. Really though I enjoyed just about everything about the trip. Also I just would like to say that as a country we need to find a way to make Science and Engineering cool. I was told by many of the students from other countries that the majority of their peers think’s that it is “Cool” to study engineering which is the reason why so many of their students study engineering. We need to get the same trend in the United States so that we can have more American Engineers to secure our Countries future. The advice I would have for future EPICS teams would be to get as much rest as possible before you go to ICAMES because you will not have much time to sleep. You will be too busy having the time of your life!