From Manchester to Silicon Valley: Arpan's Journey to YC Startup School
Entrepreneurship for all, how one Computer Science student turned curiosity into a trip to San Francisco, and came back with lessons for us all.
The Masood Entrepreneurship Centre (MEC) is the University of Manchester's focal point for enterprise and entrepreneurship teaching, learning, and startup support. MEC helps students, researchers, and alumni turn ideas into real-world impact through workshops, mentorship, and venture programmes.
This summer, , a third-year Computer Science student at 糖心Vlog官方 working on hardware for efficient AI, travelled to San Francisco to attend Y Combinator Startup School 2026, one of the most sought-after gatherings for founders and builders anywhere in the world.
For Arpan, the trip was the next step in a journey that has already seen him get stuck into entrepreneurship at Manchester. He was a student on MCEL30011 Advanced Technology Enterprise with Dr Robert Phillips, and has taken part in MEC Get Pitching. The Startup School trip itself was made possible with support from the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre (MEC).
Why he went
鈥淚鈥檝e always been a very technical and technically curious person,鈥� Arpan explained ahead of the trip. He wanted to understand what happens after the building starts: how early technical ideas actually turn into real companies, and what founders pay attention to in those first, uncertain stages.
鈥淢y main goal for the trip is to better understand what founders focus on in the early stages, how they move when there is no clear roadmap yet, and what lessons can be brought back and shared with other students.鈥�
What San Francisco was actually like
Arriving in the city, the scale of it hit almost immediately.
鈥淔rom AI billboards on every corner to riding driverless taxis, San Francisco is a city that breathes startups. The event itself was great, but meeting founders and students building things I didn鈥檛 know were possible yet, that鈥檚 what I鈥檓 taking back to Manchester.鈥� Arpan Pandey, Computer Science Student
Lessons from the frontier
Startup School brought together some of the biggest names in tech and AI, and Arpan came away with pages of notes. A few of the standout moments:
Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) talked about how cheap and fast it now is to start a company, and argued that everyone should understand how to build with AI, even if they end up using off-the-shelf tools day to day. His advice on ambition was blunt: approach big problems with 鈥渉ow hard can it be?鈥� It will be harder than you think, but that鈥檚 tomorrow鈥檚 problem.
Boris Cherny (Anthropic, creator of Claude Code) encouraged founders to experiment aggressively and give new tools harder tasks than they think they can handle, reminding the room that there is no single 鈥済olden path鈥� and that everyone has to find their own way.
Dmitri Dolgov (Waymo) offered a dose of realism on the gap between demos and production: Waymo had 100,000 miles of autonomous driving logged back in 2010, and it still took over 15 years to reach the road. Scaling anything, he said, is a game of 9s, where each extra decimal point of reliability gets dramatically harder.
Max Hodak (Science Corp) spoke about judgement, urgency and resourcefulness, including his view that you cannot delegate your own judgement, and that when you鈥檙e stuck, taking action is itself a way of generating information.
The takeaway
Beyond the talks, Arpan found just as much value in the conversations that happened around them.
鈥淭he talks were great, but I learned just as much at the after-events, meeting founders and seeing how far ahead at the frontier some of these startups actually are.鈥� Arpan Pandey
His message to other students
For Arpan, the trip wasn鈥檛 just about what he could learn. It was also about encouraging others to put themselves forward for opportunities like this.
鈥淔or other students thinking about opportunities like this, my advice is simple: aim high and apply. You do not need to have everything figured out before putting yourself forward.鈥� Arpan Pandey
It鈥檚 a message that sits at the heart of what MEC is about: entrepreneurship for all. Whatever course you鈥檙e studying, and whatever stage your idea or your curiosity is at, there is a pathway into opportunities like this at Manchester.
Want to get involved?
Arpan鈥檚 story is just one example of what鈥檚 possible. Whatever you鈥檙e studying and whatever stage you鈥檙e at, MEC is here to help you explore entrepreneurship, build your skills and take your next step.
Find out more about MEC and the opportunities open to you on the .
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