My semester officially started at Columbia University, filled with interesting courses, fun activities and meeting inspiring people. Also, I officially passed the one-month mark in the Big Apple and the city never seizes to amaze me.
The last evening before the classes would commence, I strayed around Brooklyn Bridge to watch the sunset. You really see New York city coming to life with all the lights turning on, while the sun sets down. After this relaxing evening, I was ready to start the semester!
The first two weeks were filled with courses that I wanted to try out. At Columbia University, or in the American system in general, the student has no mandatory courses, but only elective ones. Meetings with professors are held, to guide every student individually, but in the end the student makes the final choice, whether to drop or take the course. Here are the four courses I ended up taking. In a next post I’ll elaborate more on them:
- Analog Electronic Circuits, by Prof. Shahriar Shahramian
- Power Electronics, by Prof. Matthias Preindl
- Fundamentals of Photonics, by Prof. Michal Lipson
- mm-Wave IC Design, by Prof. Bodhisatwa Sadhu and Prof. Wooram Lee
The first scientific event I visited was the PhD Symposium of Columbia Engineering, held on ‘Engineering for humanity’. Different researchers presented their work and how it was related to enhancing the standard of life. It was great to learn more about these multi-disciplinary research topics, across different engineering fields.
Next I attended the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) at Columbia, where Queen Mathilde of Belgium addressed the conference on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This conference taught me how intertwined the scientific world really is! Many collaborations were presented here. I also had the opportunity to have an extremely interesting conversation with professors from the University of Aruba that collaborate with ESAT. Further I enjoyed several enriching presentations on how technology and engineering can improve sustainability on all levels. For sure, this exchange semester is an inspiring experience.
University life itself is also filled with a lot of leisure activities. These can go from outside movie-screenings on campus, to a parade with lanterns at night, or a silent disco on the main square. It was extremely funny, seeing everyone, including myself, singing along with some classic songs booming through their headphones. All this, while the bystanders on campus only had our attempts of singing, to guess the lyrics and song that was currently being played.
I had so much fun attending these events and meeting people from all over the globe with very diverse backgrounds. These first weeks were filled with interesting lectures, eye-opening scientific conventions and fun activities to meet people!
Arnaud from KU Leuven to Columbia University 