I was heading to a plane that will take me for nearly one year away from my family, friends, students and generally my comfort zone. I have heard comments that I am “too old” for this kind of fellowships, after all I am over 40 years old now. I was challenged I will not be able to cope with the US higher education system; that is so much different from Egyptian/EU system. I kept thinking if I would be able to share an apartment with four other strangers from four continents and literally from two different generations.  On the plane escalator, I looked back and sighed, “What have I done to myself?”

I landed in the happy valley and prayed happiness will be around the corner. Sharing an apartment was a challenge I am not acquainted with. Spending most of the time in a tiny room was stressful at the beginning. All changed, once I joined the classes, I had a wish list that included some undergraduate courses and some postgraduate courses. I enrolled in “Creativity and Innovation” course, where my team was 4 young gentlemen, each week we have a new challenge from preparing a video to promote our team to setting an auction for fund raising, we even had to think of innovative escape way for 9/11 detained victims. Being in the students’ seats after so many years standing on the opposite side of the podium was a great experience. Having the chance to work with Gen Z as a team member not a supervisor was vivacious. I felt I was back in my twenties.

As a part of my “Hubert Humphrey Fellowship” I had to work in an organization that serves my future goals, I was lucky to work with the University VP and the head of the office of entrepreneurship and commercialization, coincidentally we were both originally a chemist. Through my work, I have understood why US universities are by far the most entrepreneurial universities worldwide. What I learnt best from Dr. James Delattre is “Everyone on the table must have a voice, and it has to be heard, this is how brilliant ideas are generated”

I was blessed with my host family; they were a couple of pensioners who had an impressive professional life behind and was literally two love birds. They always described their relationship as “carpooling”, two who chose to spend their whole life sharing love and care. I hope if I ever make it to the seventies, to be as passionate and as resilient as they are, to be able to embrace the consequences of aging and the grace of wisdom.

The second part of my fellowship, I left the freezing east coast to the warm west coast, in fact this was not my first visit to San Francisco as I am a TechWomen fellow. San Francisco never failed to enchant me, not only with its Golden Bridge but also with gorgeous TechWomen mentors who were there to support me all the way. I became a fellow at the Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Center at UC Berkeley, a place where innovation spurts. One day, I received the sweetest invitation from one of my former students, a lady with a PhD in Biotechnology and a warm voice, enclosed was a ticket to attend “ Baleegh Hamdi” memoir, this night I laughed and cried, I saw my young students becoming prominent scientists but are still under the spell of Egypt.

Since my return, I keep looking back and asking, “Was the tassel, worth the hassle?” “Can I help reforming our universities and our programs to be more entrepreneurial”, can I help adding some innovation spices to the traditional Higher Education Institutes. I am still chasing the dream and I believe “I am a person who can get what she wants done” as once told by the director of Sutardja innovation center, the top innovation center in UC Berkeley.