Wrestling With Change: DI Sports, Moving On, and… Coding? | Adar Schwarzbach | TEDxDuke
Stepping away from a Division I sport is no easy fit. How do you rebuild your identity and fill the hours once consumed by practice, travel, and competition? For Schwarzbach, leaving his DI wrestling team was both the hardest and most transformative choice he ever made. In letting go, he made room for new passions. Soon enough, Schwarzbach had traded in upper cuts for Java, diving headfirst into the world of coding. Adar Schwarzbach graduated from Duke University in December 2024 with a degree in Computer Science. While at Duke, he rebuilt and modernized GoBringIt, a food delivery app serving Durham restaurants and the Duke community. He previously interned at Apple and PlayStation and worked as a Research Engineer with the Stanford Microfluidics Lab, where he co-authored a paper in Analytica Chimica Acta.Adar originally came to Duke as a recruited Division I wrestler. During his senior year at Palo Alto High School, he won the Reno Worlds national championship at 152 lbs and earned all-state honors. Between his sophomore and junior year, Adar won the California Central Coast Section Championship in his weight class, won the California Greco-Roman state championship, placed third at the California Freestyle state tournament and became a member of the California National Team.This spring, Adar will begin working as a software engineer at a quantitative trading firm in Chicago. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
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