Rik van der Vossen, University of Pittsburgh, Post #2: Student life
Dear reader,
As promised this entry will be about my classes here and the different area’s in Pittsburgh. I’m taking bio engineering classes here to complete my minor and so far it has been very different from applied physics. The courses are less fundamental and more tailored to dealing with problems you’ll face in your career as a Bio engineer. The work these engineers do is closely related to healthcare. For one of the courses, called artificial organs, we actually have to visit a hospital and we get to witness an open heart surgery in the OR, quite an experience! There is a lot of homework in each course, so the final exam will only make up 25% of your final grade. This means that you really have to keep up with all the assignments and homework deadlines, even more than I’m used to in Delft.
There is still enough time to enjoy the city, though. Pittsburgh has some nice neighborhoods besides Oakland where the campus is located. The strip district is famous for its many restaurants and ethnic supermarkets, and a nice place to spend an afternoon in the weekends. Pittsburgh also boasts an area which has one of the highest bar densities in the US according to some locals and luckily I get to enjoy that as well.
Last weekend was Halloweekend, which meant dressing up in a costume and going to a lot of parties. It is very comparable to the Dutch carnaval and I really enjoyed going out with my friends and meeting a ton of new people. That’s it for now.
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