Posted in August 2015

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.