Posts in category study abroad
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
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.
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
Alisa Silven, University of Maryland, Post #2: Traveling, Studying & Combining
Hi all,
It has been a while since my first blog post, but in the meantime I have done so much, here is a small update!
I think I can say that I’m used to living as a student in the USA now, combining studying with doing several fun things; it is getting better and better. Since my last post I’ve visited Boston, completed four midterms, had a million quizzes, homework assignments and project deadlines, turned 21, celebrated Halloween the American way, and visited New York City with my parents.
A new experience for me: midterms! I am not used to the American way of studying, learning definitions, and theory by memorizing the exact words in the exact sequence, but in the U.S. I have to. This required me to develop a new way of studying. In the end, it turned out well and I passed all the midterms.
On October 29th, I turned 21, which means I’m an adult in the U.S. now. Two days after my birthday, was Halloween. Since Halloween is not a big deal in the Netherlands, I was curious about the celebration of Halloween in the U.S. Well, it’s a huge thing here. Everybody wears his or her costume (even to class!) and celebrates Halloween not only on the 31th, but also on the 30th, and the 1th of November (actually it is more like a HalloWeekend).
On Wednesday the 5th, my parents came over! I showed them around campus, Washington DC, and we spent the weekend in New York City. It was amazing and we saw so much in just a short time!
Bye!
DC seen from the Lincoln Memorial
NYC from the Brooklyn Bridge
Visiting MIT in Boston
Oscar Heerkens Thijssen, Clemson University, post 2: Clemson at it’s best
Dear reader,
Football is big in Clemson. The games are insane. There are fireworks, cheerleaders, a big band and a stadium with a capacity over 80,000. The color of Clemson is orange so everyone is dressed up in orange. It is as American as it gets. Hours before the game starts fans from miles away gather around the stadium for a tailgate party. Thousands of people load their trucks with bbq’s, beer and food and pre-party on the parking lots surrounding the stadium. The game itself usually takes around two hours. If you want to know what Clemson Football is like, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbvtdXHXaLU (4:00).
During half time we usually walk to downtown Clemson to watch the rest of the game in one of the many college bars. There is air conditioning and beers which both the stadium lacks. Since there are no bars on campus, downtown Clemson is the place to be. Students, regarded that they are over 21, come downtown mostly during the weekend.
Also, if you are planning on going to the States, make sure to attend a few frat parties. These are house parties thrown by fraternities. They usually only let girls in but if you play the exchange-student-card you will be likely to end up at an awesome party. The girls, united in sororities, live on campus so they host their events downtown. They often organize mixers. In that case different sororities meet in a bar for a theme party. If you are lucky they will ask you as their date.
Kind regards,
Oscar
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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