First day of classes for some of us.

I arrived in Atlanta last Thurday. The traffic and the heat of the city were the first things that impacted me. The campus of Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of Technology) is amazing. This University is part of the public system of the universities of the State of Georgia and it was stablished at 1885. Some aprox. figures of the University: 15.000 students . The 3/4 of the students are engineers. 76% are white Americans, 6% black, 5% hispanic. At the graduate level (masters), there are a great number of Chinese and Indian students. There is about a 20% of foreign students, specially concentrated in the Masters level.

I got all this numbers in the initial orientation at the Public Policy building. In the meeting there were Master students and several PhD students. There was around around 30 people. The teachers seemed nice, and the students kind of nervous. There were different nationalities.

I am visiting Georgia Tech under the PRIME (Policies of Research and Innovation in the Move towards the European Research Area) program. My school, Aalborg University and Georgia Tech, are part of this network. There are also a dozen of European Universities. Here is a link of the PRIME program at my home University, which describes my classes. I am specializing in Science and Technology. However I am also interested in other fields.

Here is the building of Public Policy where my classes are held. It as an old building, but inside is all high tech and restored. It is very nice. The School of Public Policy, has a few specializations. It is very nice that they are open to share knowledge with European Universities. The University is already ranked as one of the best Universities in the USA. Perhaps between the top 50, which is amazing, considering that there is around 3.500 university-level centers in this country.

This Monday August 20, was my first day of class. As you know, the American system is very open to enroll in classes, in my case as a visitor I have even more freedom to enroll in whatever I want. I just need to take 4 classes. I will tell you more about them, and what interesting things I find. I will try to compare it to Aalborg.

I wonder how the classmates from last year are doing. I think all of us are having new adventures, some of them in far places. Some of them are working in internships, and others are taking further classes at Aalborg. I hope we can all share some stories here.