Posted in December 2014
Alisa Silven, University of Maryland, Post #3: Saying thanks & goodbye
Hi all!
Before all the studying for finals started, there was Thanksgiving at the last weekend of November. I was very lucky that two of my roommates asked me to go with them to their families to spent a real American Thanksgiving in their families’ houses. It was exactly as I expected it to be: a lot of food! Turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, everything! These days were great and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to experience this.
Currently I’m almost done studying for the finals. Last week and this week I made three essays, five final exams, handed in three projects and did three presentations; it has been quite busy. Unlike the finals in Delft, the finals here don’t make up 100% of your final grade for the course. Homework, attendance, quizzes, midterms and projects together count for approximately 60-80% of your final grade, depending on the course. Even though the finals don’t have such a big influence on passing or failing the course as in Delft, you still need to put a good amount of effort in it, in order to remain a good letter grade. One bad final can bring your grade down from an A to a C (from a 10 to a 6, converted to our grading system).
Now I’m almost done with all my courses, it is time to say goodbye to all the friends I made here. It is so strange to say goodbye to people you lived with or spent so much time with, maybe I’ll never see them again (I don’t hope so though!). For now, I’m going to enjoy my last days here at the University of Maryland and then I’m off for a vacation, to return to Delft, where the “normal life” will start again.
Bye!
Oscar Heerkens Thijssen, Clemsson University, post4: Academics
Dear reader,
This is the last week before the finals. Academics so far have not been hard so far. I am take two mechanical courses and two electrical courses. During the semester there are a couple of midterms and usually you are expected to do homework. Both, homework and midterms, cover around 60% of the final grade. So by the time it is exam week you have a pretty good idea what your final grade is going to be like.
For one of my electrical engineering classes, power engineering, we went on a tour to a coal power plant in Charleston. We arrived the day before, after a five hour drive, and spent the night in one of the lodges of the utility company. Charleston is great for going out so we very much enjoyed ourselves. The day after we had a little hard time focusing during the presentations, as expected. However, the power plant itself was very impressive. There was a pile of coal worth $200 million laying if front of the plant and the sheer size of the boilers was overwhelming. In total it was one of the best trips I did.
Besides the courses I am working on a robotics project with a group of mechanical and computer engineering students. We are programming a robot that will assist humans in assembly tasks at the BMW manufacturing plant in Greenville, and potentially throughout the US. The robot is able to tell different car parts apart using its cameras, can grab the single part and place it on the right spot in the dashboard. Baxter, as the robot is called, is not yet fully functional but the trip to BMW to show our results is already planned.
During fall break our group was invited to a conference of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Two of us went there to present our project. The flight and hotel were paid for by the US Navy. Unfortunately I could not go since I had the New Orleans trip planned. When I comes to academics Clemson has a lot to offer. Especially the projects, named ‘creative inquiries’, are worth checking out.
Kind regards,
Oscar
Rik van der Vossen, University of Pittsburgh, Post #3: Finals week
Hi!
The weeks here are flying by and next week is actually finals week. That means that last week we had our last lectures of the semester. The semester is a little shorter here than we are used to back in Delft. But that means that after this stressful week I got some time to relax until I have to start my classes in Delft in February.
Since we had to take so many quizzes and hand in homework every week most of our grade has already been determined, and I think I’m in pretty good shape. This makes this last week a little bit more relaxed, but the pressure is still on. People make long days here and the library is open 24 hours. Pulling all-nighters is not for me but you see a lot of people collapsing over their books if you go in there now.
After the last finals on Saturday people start packing immediately. Everybody who lives in the dorms has to leave their room clean and tidy the next day and the University closes until January. I will have a farewell party with all the people I met here and after that I’m on my way to NYC and will travel around a bit before going back to the Netherlands in January. I will write my last post next week to tell you guys how my finals went and what my general impression was about this semester in the US.
Rik
Oscar Heerkens Thijssen, Clemson University, post3: Looking around
Dear reader,
The end of the semester is getting closer every day. All of us are desperately trying to squeeze some more trips in before going home. Looking back, we have seen quite a lot of places though.
During Halloween we went to New Orleans with a group of 20, mixed international and American students. We rented a big house just across the Mississippi so every night we took the ferry which dropped us of right in the city center. New Orleans is one of the biggest party cities in the states so we did not have any problems enjoying ourselves. We filled the days with sitting on our front porch, wandering around the city and doing tours to the swamps.
Two weeks later, in an attempt to top the New Orleans trip we rented a cabin in the mountains. The cabin was located in the woods with a lake nearby. One of the main activities was trying to squeeze everyone in the hot tub, which was quite a challenge considering that we were 30 people. There were pool and football tables and a fireplace which was burning constantly. We also spend a lot of time fishing and hunting around the lake.
I celebrated Thanksgiving in New York with Janine and her family. It was very special to be a part of such a family tradition. I would recommend everyone to go home with one of your American friends during this holiday. New York is a cool place to visit anyways. Especially the 9/11 memorial and museum are very impressive.
A part from that we did trips to Washington DC, Atlanta, Charlotte and Charleston. A few people even went to Florida and Chicago. Gas is extremely cheap and on weekend we just rented a car and drove somewhere. So, no reason to get bored.
Kind regards,
Oscar
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