The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Polytechnic was my first choice in the 1995 national university entrance examinations, and when I was admitted I was very happy. I did not yet know that summer to what extent NTUA would shape my subsequent path as a scientist, naturally, but above all as a person.

At the school I met lifelong friends who later became close colleagues and witnesses at my wedding, with whom we shared unforgettable moments in the cafeteria, in the lecture halls at Zografou and in the city centre (where lectures were still held at the time), at student marches, at film screenings at the student residence…

Together we discovered Tarkovsky and political commitment, as well as the fact that the electrical appliances in a house are connected in parallel, not in series! There I was taught and came to love quantum physics and robotics, integrated circuits and communication networks, and I decided without any doubt that I preferred optics experiments to programming. The breadth of the courses and the depth to which our professors pushed us helped me enormously when I later had to pass the particularly demanding qualifying examinations at Stanford in order to begin my doctoral studies.

I recall with gratitude the diploma thesis with Professor Chitzanidis on the strange solitons, and the encouraging advice that professors who had studied abroad gave to all students like me who wished to continue with doctoral studies at universities in America or Europe.

Those were demanding and wonderful years that I will never forget.