Posted in 2015
Michele Facchinelli – Georgia Institute of Technology – Post 2
Hey everyone! It is time for me to write a second post. I have been in the US for almost three months already, and the experience is going great. I have met so many nice and interesting people from this country and many others, and can really say that I am very satisfied with my experience.
Classes
Classes at Georgia Tech work a bit differently. First of all, at least for the faculty of Physics, where I take all my courses, lectures have very little students. The most classmates I have are about 20 and the least is the incredibly low number of 3. This makes lectures more one-to-one and leaves more time for interaction with the professor.
Another big difference are the homework problems. For every class we are assigned a set of problems for the following week or for two weeks after. The homework is then graded by the TA’s and it will affect a certain percentage of our final grade. Sometimes the homework deadlines all match which makes things even harder (especially if you are not used to compulsory homework). Luckily, classes only last one hour and each day I have 3 hours of lessons. This leaves a lot of extra time after classes to study and I still end up having free time in the evening.
To be honest, I prefer this teaching method, rather than staying at the University for 8 consecutive hours, as sometimes happens at TU Delft.
Football
Football in the US is a very huge thing, especially in the South. So every week or so, there is a football game between the Georgia Tech team (Yellow Jackets) and some other University. Although I am not a fan of watching sports, I have had a lot of fun cheering and watching the games.
It’s really crazy how many people attend the Football games. The stadium is always packed with fans, both students/alumni and other people not really affiliated with the school, but that just enjoy watching the games.
Social Life
Even though classes have very little students (and it seems it would be easy to get to know one another), most students find their friends outside their Departments. Fraternities and other associations are extremely common in the US and that is where they make friends.
I met most of my friends at the Christian Campus Fellowship (or CCF), and with them I shared most of my experiences. Interestingly enough, that is the same place Julia van der Burgt (another student from TU Delft that went to Georgia Tech in 2013) spent a lot of time (and they actually still remember her).
CCF helped me integrate into the American society very well and right from the beginning. They organize a lot of amazing and fun activities. Just last weekend we went to Panama City Beach in Florida, where we enjoyed one last day at the beach with really nice weather. Also, they plan many events, like camping, parties (like the Halloween and pumpkin carving in the photos), trips to corn mazes and many more every week.
Anouk Slockers – University of Florida: Post 2 – Classes and Thanksgiving
Jenneke Bijpost – University of Maryland, Post # 2 , So much to do!
Hi everyone,
Now, I am already over half way through my time here. The time is going so fast here! I barely know where to start when telling about my experiences. So I’ll start with the educational part.
In the last couple of weeks I did 4 exams, submitted a project, whilst working on two others and at the same time I had weekly mandatory homework for three courses. The courses I am taking are not very hard but do require a lot of time and work. Every lecture is in a different building soI am very happy I made the decision to rent a bike in the beginning of the semester. Although some people look at you like you’re crazy, it saves me a lot of time. In general the teachers are very nice and approachable. This Saturday one teacher even invited me over to have dinner with her and some other students.
Even though I have a lot of homework, I still have time to undertake some non- school related activities. For example going to a sport events (soccer, basketball or football). Sports, in general, are very big in America and people are very much involved. Two weeks ago the alumni came back to the university for a weekend, called Homecoming. This might be one of the most American events I have experienced. Several activities were organized culminating in the football game. Before the football game almost everybody attended one or more so called ‘Tailgates’, a meet-up of a group of people with a lot of fried food and beer.
A month ago I had my first proper Halloween celebration. Everybody is dressed up, some even during the day and people are already preparing their outfits weeks before. I also had the possibility to visit Philadelphia and Washington DC. With a Civil Engineering Event I had the possibility to go on the roof of the Capital in Washington and got a tour about the construction work. This weekend I am planning to see the famous Air and Space museum in Washington.
Although I am doing a lot, there is still much to do before I leave. Thanksgiving is next week and a friend invited me over to celebrate with her and her family. The first weekend of December I will visit New York and her majestic Christmas Tree. A lot to look forward to!
Jenneke
Anouk Slockers, University of Florida, post 1 – Being a florida gator
Hi everyone,
My name is Anouk and I was given the opportunity to go abroad to the U.S. with the Global E3 program. After all the paperwork and arranging, which is a lot of work but definitely worth it, I got excepted to the University of Florida located in Gainesville. Now it’s the end of september and I have been here for around 6 weeks already, I’ll share my experiences so far with you in this post!
First of all being a student at UF (university of florida) is a really special thing, over here the school spirit is one of the most important things. Every students is a gator, gators referring to alligators which is also the school mascots. It’s not unusual to see people walking around totally dressed in orange and blue which are the school colors. All of this is definitely combined during football games in the swamp, a stadium which can hold over 90 000 people! To experience everything, me and some other exchange students bought season tickets, which means we will go to all 7 home games this fall. The Gators (football players) have been doing great so far with 4 wins out of 4 games, I can’t wait to see what happens this Saturday!
Next to this amazing experience a lot of stuff has happened in the past few weeks! I had been to the United States before so I knew something about some crazy habits most Americans have such as: taking the car everywhere (even from 1 part of the parking lot to the other part), setting the air conditioning to freezing mode while the weather is so nice outside and almost never cooking a home cooked meal.
One of the most amazing things is the amount of new people I have met from all over the world. Also all American students are really interested when you tell that you are from The Netherlands, even tough some of them don’t even know where that is exactly…
I would love to tell more but I have 2 exams this Thursday so I should continue studying now… (big difference with Delft: not only final exams but lots of homework and test during the semester) I will try to post a new post in about 2 weeks to tell you more about all my experiences, go Gators!
Anouk
Pieter-Bas Bentinck, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Post #1: Campus and Atlanta
Dear reader,
Since August 11th 2015, I have been calling Atlanta, in the state Georgia in the USA, my home. For the Fall semester, which lasts from mid-August until mid-December, I will be doing my minor at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). In 2013 I started my bachelor of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology and after a long process of applications I got accepted here through Global E3.
Atlanta is a huge city in the south of the United States and the Campus of Georgia Tech is right in the center of it. The downtown area, where the business center and some of the major sports arenas are located, is only a mile away and midtown, where they some nice bars and restaurants, is even closer. Nevertheless, walking isn’t very common, except for when you walk to classes on campus (although even there they have a bus network that runs quite regularly).
Other than that cars are the big thing here, partly because gas is really cheap. But even if you do not have a car, Ubers are sometimes even cheaper than public transport when you want to go around town.
However, even though cars are relatively cheap, it is not really necessary to leave campus a lot. This is because there is so much to do here. For example, when you study at Georgia Tech, you are automatically allowed access to the sports center, where you can do pretty much every type of sports you want. You can join the club teams or you can form a team yourself and join the intramural competition. This is a competition within the university that takes about half a semester, during which you play a game per week. You can choose between 4 sports and once it is done, a new phase with four different sports will start. For the first phase, we signed up for ultimate frisbee with a group of friends.
Another big thing at Georgia Tech is, just like many other US colleges, college football. Georgia Tech has a really good team and there is a lot of things going on whenever they have a game. During home games, which are about every other week, it is quite common to go ‘tailgating’ before the game. Tailgating officially means having a little party around the back of your car. People will bring beers and barbecues (and in extreme cases even complete tents with TV-screens etc.) before they take off to the game. Because you live so close to the stadium at Tech, bringing a car doesn’t make sense, but the rest comes down to the same. Once you get to the game eventually it is the typical American experience with cheerleaders, mascots and marching bands so even if you aren’t really into sports, it is a great experience.
That’s it for now. There is still a lot I haven’t told yet, but that will come in the next posts!
Cheers,
Pieter-Bas
Lieve – New York University, Post 1
Hi everyone!
I’m a third years student mechanical engineering at Delft University of technology and I’m spending the fall semester 2015 at NYU (New York University). I had the great oppurtunity to do a semester abroad in NYC by taking part in the GlobalE3 exchange program. I picked NYU as my first choice, because I’ve been to new york once and I LOVED the city and I definitely wanted to experience living in this city myself. Especially because Delft is a small city with a sort of ‘student campus community’ where everyone knows each other, it seemed really interesting to me to experience student life in a big city!
Exactly a month ago I left Schiphol airport to fly all the way to the big apple. The first couple of days I stayed in an airbnb in uptown manhattan, until I could move into my dorm. I’m spending my semester in an on-campus nyu dorm, called 2nd street. The dorm is located at the corner of 2nd street and bowery, which is in the lower east side. This is a wonderful, I would say the best, place to live in manhattan! It is a 2 minute walk to SOHO, a 5 minute walk to the campus and washington sqaure park, and is surrounded by adorable restaurants and cafés.
My arrival day at the dorm was kind of funny, because all students were bringing SO much stuff into their room, while I had only one big suitcase. My room is on the ninth floor and compared to the others, quite big. I share my room with my roommate Emily. Fortunately, she is from the U.S. so she brought a microwave (which didn’t fit into my suitcase…). I got really lucky with her being my roommate, because we are exactly the same kind of girls and we have become really good friends, spending a lot of time together!
My first day from the ‘NYU welcome week’ was impressive: people yelling and congratulating me with my acceptance at NYU when I entered the building. After picking up my NYU ID (you have to show this everywhere, usually 15 times a day, so you would be completely lost without it…), I went to the NYU bookstore. I expected a booksore, but it is actually more like an NYU fanshop. They sell literally everything, from sweaters to plates, with NYU on it! During the welcome week I noticed that the ‘free food events’ are very popular among nyu students, because food and grocery’s are incredibly expensive! Almost all grocery stores are more or less 3 times as expensive as in the Netherlands. My roommate taught me that there is only 1 grocery store in manhattan which is pretty cheap: Trader Joe’s. If you come there between 5 and 9, the line for the check-out will be outside the store 😉
After a couple of days exploring the city and the campus, my classes had begun. Although my major is mechanical engineering, I decided to take some completely different courses at NYU. I’m taking French, Psychology, Chemistry and Flight mechanics. I really like the variety among my classes! The first two are teached at the main campus, in very impressive buildings, all located around washington square park. On tuesdays and thursdays I have to go to the engineering campus, which is located in Brooklyn. Usually I take the subway to Brooklyn, but sometimes I walk (40 minutes) or bike there. People in the city walk everywhere, so my legs got really muscled! My French class is very small, only 14 students, and that is where I met 2 of my best friends. There is a remarkable difference between my classes here and at the TU Delft, I have LOTS of homework at NYU. So you have to keep up with everything, because you can earn a great deal of your final grade with quizzes, webassignments and midterm exams during the semester. The good news: if you do your homework it’s almost impossible to fail a class ;). I am lucky because I have no classes on Friday. I use my fridays to hang out with friends, explore the city, crash in central park or go to Coney Island beach. So far the weather has been incredible (average of 30 degrees celcius and lots of sun), so my visit to the wonderful coney island beach was great!!
Although living in NYC is extremely expensive (my room costs $2000 a month!!), the gym is free for NYU students, so I go there a lot, most of the times with Emily. Most of the NYU students are enrolled in a mealplan (americans never cook!), but Emily and I decided to take care of our own meals. We go to Trader Joe’s 2 times a week to buy lots of food and we cook and eat together almost everyday. During the weekends I go out with a group of girls to fancy nightclubs! You have to dress up completely and you have to be invited by a ‘promoter’ to be able to get in there. Being a girl in nyc is great, because you’ve got free entrance and drinks in all nightclubs! Going to those nightclubs was a real experience, completely different than going out in the Netherlands, but lots of fun!!
So far, this is a wonderful experience and I’m having a great time in the city. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the semester!
Lieve
Jenneke Bijpost – University of Maryland, Post # 1 , The Beginning
Hi everyone!
In 2013 I started as a student at the Technical University of Delft, majoring in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management. Now, 2 years later, I am at the beginning of my minor. This Fall-semester, I will be at the University of Maryland, taking courses in Civil Engineering. My name is Jenneke Bijpost and over the next couple of months I will give you an insight into my life as an exchange student at the University of Maryland.
My adventure in the United States started at the end of July. I had an opportunity to work on a project in Holland, Michigan for 2 weeks and before I made a trip to San Francisco for a week. So when I came to the University at the end of August, I was already a bit used to a couple of things like American English, time difference, American opportunism, American food and suchlike. Nevertheless, my first week was a week full of experiences. I met my roommate (yes, I share a room), went to Washington DC and explored the city from a canoe, saw my first American Football game, found out the difference between a Dutch soccer game and an American one and a lot more! A couple of days ago I booked a flight to Chicago for next weekend with a group of students. To be short, the American life is full of opportunities.
Last week was my first week with classes. There are some really big differences between the Dutch school system and the American one. The classes here are a lot smaller (around 40 people per class) and you don’t have one test at the end of the semester but a lot of graded homework, pop-up quizzes and projects. Before you even can start thinking about your test, you already build up about 80% of your grade. Interaction with the teacher is really important and because of the size of the classes, the teacher recognizes you from the class before. In some courses your grade is even partially based on your appearance and energy in the class.
Over all, I am having an incredible time over here. The courses are really interesting and I am learning a variety of subjects at one time. There are so many opportunities for activities outside school! I am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks!!
Jenneke
Michele Facchinelli – Georgia Institute of Technology – Post 1
Hi everyone! I am a third year TUD student at the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. For my minor abroad, I decided to go to the United States, more in particular to the Georgia Institute of Technology (or, as everyone calls it here, Georgia Tech, or even GaTech), through Global E3. The university is situated in Midtown Atlanta, one of the biggest cities in the South-East of the US (see picture).
Since I arrived here just a few days ago, I don’t have a really neat overview of how things work here and on how to get around (I literally get lost all the time). Also classes haven’t started yet, so I can’t say for now how they are compared to the TU Delft ones. Thus in this first post, I would like to just write my first impressions and maybe give a few tips for student coming to the US or GaTech in the future.
People
Probably the first thing one notices upon arrival are how other people behave and how they interact with each other. As a first impact I would say that Americans here is Georgia are very friendly. It might be, as many of them themselves say, just because we are in the South (people often talk about ‘Southern hospitality’, which by the way is totally a thing also in Italy), but people, even complete strangers, smile, say ‘hello’ and start a conversation with you like you knew them all your life. I must say I find this very welcoming. It is very nice to have casual conversations on the bus or while walking around campus.
One thing I really don’t understand, though, is their way of saying ‘hi’. Everyone, from a person you know, to a person you’ve never seen, when they walk into you they just say: “Hey, how are you?”. The first times it comes natural to simply answer the question. But this, more often than not, results in a very awkward situation: the person who asked the question just walks away and you find yourself talking to yourself. At one of the introduction program events, about cultural differences, the speaker did mention this as a problem many international students have when first arrived. With ‘hey, how are you?’ they don’t really want to know how you’re feeling, but it’s just their way of saying ‘hello’.
Campus
The campus it’s quite huge. It’s definitely much larger and broader than the TU Delft campus, and with the buildings almost randomly spread around its area (instead of being along a long road, like in Delft). Luckily they thought of this and in the campus there are four bus lines, taking students to wherever they need (all for free). The most convenient one is the Tech Trolley (see picture), the old-fashioned looking bus.
(photo credit: https://pts.gatech.edu/subsite2/Pages/Tech%20Trolley%20and%20Midnight%20Rambler.aspx)
I actually prefer walking, because after all, despite the size of the campus, you can walk side-to-side in about 20 minutes. Furthermore, a very big difference with Delft is that there are basically no bicycles here. GaTech was ranked the most bike-friendly campus in the US, but there is still a gigantic gap between the bike lanes in the TUD campus and the ones here.
The campus itself is very green and quite hilly. There are a lot of parks and it is very likely that while walking you’ll meet hundreds of squirrels (I’ve taken so many pictures of them already, see one of them below). So even though Georgia Tech is in such a big city, they managed to keep the nature present.
Georgia Tech
For international students, the university highly suggests to join the FASET, which is basically a day of introduction. During this day you will listen to some speakers and they will help you register for classes. Since the price for such event is about $110, I would suggest not to attend it, because the only useful thing that happens is class registration, which you can do anywhere, with an Internet connection. Just remember to write an email to the supervisor of the program you would like to attend telling him which courses you want to attend and asking for a registration override (he’ll probably ask for the list of courses you attended at TU Delft, to check if your background is good enough).
Accommodation
As an international student, you will have the opportunity of living on-campus is the I-house, the international students house. Unfortunately, due to the high request, I was not chosen as one of its inhabitants. The university, though, offered me and the other students who didn’t get in, the possibility of living in one of the dorms on-campus (see picture).
Living on-campus has many upsides, like all the buildings are within walking distance, it’s a very safe place (there is a police force just for the campus, see picture), you meet a lot of other students and there is always something to do (from the gym, to the beach volleyball court, etc.). The main downsides are the price (about $4000 a semester) and the rooms, which are pretty small and furnished with rather old furnishing (unless you are lucky to end up in one of the renovated buildings).
Another option for housing is Westmar, a very big student housing complex off-campus. The main advantages are probably that the rent is a bit cheaper and that the apartments are more spacious, but of course, being off-campus, you need to get a bus (available every 30 minutes) to get to the university. The building offers, though, a gym, a supermarket, a swimming pool and other cool amenities.
Free time
Here at Georgia Tech there are more than 400 associations and clubs. There is literally a club for everything: if you want to play Bridge, they have it; a flying club, of course; and so much more. Obviously there are also a lot of sports clubs and the Campus Recreation Center is equipped with any kind of training machine you can think of.
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