Other interesting weeks have passed, filled with sports and studying.
I attended my first American football game ever and it was great! The rules are still sometimes a bit unclear to me, but the atmosphere is really overwhelming. Columbia Blue, the color representing this university, could be seen everywhere, but really everywhere! A magnificent view for sure.
Also I joined a recreational basketball team of engineers and we play weekly in the Levien gym, the official basketball court for Columbia games. In true American fashion, sport also has to be combined with the educational aspect of university.
One of the researchers that I met at the PhD Symposium previously, invited me for a tour in the Carleton Laboratory at Columbia. Although rather a mechanical lab, it was really an educational experience.
Following was also an excursion to a solar panel assembly factory to strengthen solar panels. There they add some thermal layers, so that these can be used as rooftop tiles themselves, instead of mounting the solar panels on top of the actual roof. This expanded my understanding of how different fields of engineering approach problems.
However it isn’t always fun and games, as my first midterms period passed. Depending on the courses, you can have anywhere from 0 to 4 midterms. These also take place during class and only last an hour or two. But my first 3 mini-exams went well.
After cheering for the Columbia Lions and surviving my first midterms, I got a well-rounded experience of what life is like at Columbia University.
Arnaud from KU Leuven to Columbia University 