Name: Dillon Africa 

Hometown: Iowa City, IA 

Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering 

Research: N/A 

Plans After Graduation: I've accepted a position working with the creation and maintenance of hosting environments for Epic Systems in Madison, WI, and will be starting this June. 

Things I'll miss about Iowa City: I actually grew up in Iowa City and then chose to stay close to home for college so I guess what I'll miss about it is being close to my family and friends that I've known forever. I'm also going to miss all of the amazing people and faculty that I've gotten to know and had the pleasure of working with throughout my time here at Iowa. I'm also going to miss the food for sure. 

What you enjoyed the most about your research/the graduate program?: I enjoyed just having the opportunity to take more classes on topics I was interested in. One of the driving factors I had for going to graduate school was that I felt I didn't get to take enough classes in areas I was really interested in. I think the additional year I got with the U2G program was the perfect amount of classwork and allowed me to get a firmer grasp on what type of work I might want to do after graduation. 

What are you looking forward to after graduation?: I'm excited to start working and putting my degree to use. I really enjoyed the internships I've done in the past years and I'm ready to start my career as a professional engineer. I'm also excited for some more free time (hopefully) to do things I enjoy like golfing, traveling, and fishing. Along with graduation, I will also be leaving my position as a student manager with the football team here at Iowa, a position I have had since my freshman year on campus. Balancing this time-demanding position as well as being a full-time engineering student definitely had its challenges, but if I could go back I wouldn't change a thing.