Today was a long travel day with a lot of stops, one of them including my site visit! My group was in charge of the UM6P site visit, and we were definitely blown away. I think that the order of our site visits also made a lot of sense as we learned more and more about technology, entrepreneurship, and startups. Starting off with stopping at Casablanca’s Technopark, we learned how helpful the techno park is to help with startups and give them a workspace, connections, and some sort of seed funding to start up the business they want. It was nice to see how cooperative and innovative the park was. My favorite part about the park was by the front desk, where there is a machine where anyone can submit their cover letter, and it gets sent to all the start-ups that are looking for someone with said experience that matches.

After that, we headed for lunch at the California mall, and I was overwhelmed with options to say the least. There was Korean food, sushi burritos, shawarma, and so much more. I ended up getting a shwarma and a mojito, which is now my new favorite drink.

Next was our site visit along with 1337 coding school. I was definitely blown away when listening to the presentation about 1337 coding school. Their business and learning model for students is one that I have never heard of, and they were so successful with it, too. Having a flexible schedule for students, social benefits, graduating on your own deadline, no professors, I mean, it sounds amazing and so futuristic. They also tie in with UM6P as they are one of the university’s cohorts. UM6P offers so many majors and research topics that every student’s journey is unique. I loved how open and innovative their campus was, everything from their dorms to learning areas. Coming into the site visit, I did have some questions about the university regarding student life and the balance between work and leisure time. When we asked, we learned how many students are involved in different clubs, like the student from 1337, who was president of a podcasting club and a member of an AI club. Another thing that helped our findings was seeing how they use their recreational spaces, like the soccer fields, to help students build their athletic skills as well. Working towards building athletics, there are also hybrid high schools partnered with UM6P that focus on student athletes and train them for national competitions, the Olympics, and other athletic conventions. Overall, I learned a lot about UM6P on the other side of their research and education and will definitely be adding it into our final report.

Finally, ended our day off by arriving in Marakesh where a long two days await ahead of us!