It is day 7 in Pittsburgh. Orientation for international students started 6 days ago. It has been 4 days since the start of orientation for the entire cohort. Mum returned to Singapore 3 days ago.
Choosing a school was a little like shooting in the dark for me. I based my decision on what people wrote about the school, on the strength of her program, her rankings and reputation, but I’ve never been to Carnegie Mellon before I enrolled.
I’ve never even been in Pittsburgh. When I told Judy that I will be going to school in Pittsburgh, she told me she had learnt about the city in geography. Pittsburgh was a textbook example of industrial pollution, environmental degeneration and urban planning gone wrong. But that was probably more than fifty years ago. This place was then the steel mill of America. I saw some of that industrialization when I took the clipper cruise up and down the rivers yesterday (part of orientation). The few factories that I saw don’t seem to be doing any harm to the environment, and there is something very old-world and proletarian about them that makes them very quaint at the same time. Downtown Pittsburgh is slightly smaller than Manhattan; you get the same amenities and the architecture share the same Art Deco and Art Moderne influences, but you don’t find the grime, the crowd, the urban dislocation and hustle and bustle over here. It isn’t a metropolis but there’s still a lot of commerce going on; buildings are a lot more spaced out compared to New York City and the streets are a lot cleaner.
Seeing the university for the first time was also
relief. In terms of finding the right environment to study, I think I have made the right choice. The school is not extremely old but still very charming. Even the laboratories have a certain charm. It’s actually a good thing that the place is not too old. I don’t see what is so romantic about ivies creeping all over the school and having gargoyles stare down at you from every corner. In fact, I find that slightly hideous. Being not too old also makes the place less dreary, more cheerful, less depressing and less bleak. I really like the lush lawns, where in the evening you can find people playing Frisbee, practicing the bagpipe or just sitting around. The school is also not very big, but there is enough space between buildings to make sending someone back to her hall of residence ‘a walk to remember’.
Choosing a school was a little like shooting in the dark for me. I based my decision on what people wrote about the school, on the strength of her program, her rankings and reputation, but I’ve never been to Carnegie Mellon before I enrolled.
I’ve never even been in Pittsburgh. When I told Judy that I will be going to school in Pittsburgh, she told me she had learnt about the city in geography. Pittsburgh was a textbook example of industrial pollution, environmental degeneration and urban planning gone wrong. But that was probably more than fifty years ago. This place was then the steel mill of America. I saw some of that industrialization when I took the clipper cruise up and down the rivers yesterday (part of orientation). The few factories that I saw don’t seem to be doing any harm to the environment, and there is something very old-world and proletarian about them that makes them very quaint at the same time. Downtown Pittsburgh is slightly smaller than Manhattan; you get the same amenities and the architecture share the same Art Deco and Art Moderne influences, but you don’t find the grime, the crowd, the urban dislocation and hustle and bustle over here. It isn’t a metropolis but there’s still a lot of commerce going on; buildings are a lot more spaced out compared to New York City and the streets are a lot cleaner.Seeing the university for the first time was also
relief. In terms of finding the right environment to study, I think I have made the right choice. The school is not extremely old but still very charming. Even the laboratories have a certain charm. It’s actually a good thing that the place is not too old. I don’t see what is so romantic about ivies creeping all over the school and having gargoyles stare down at you from every corner. In fact, I find that slightly hideous. Being not too old also makes the place less dreary, more cheerful, less depressing and less bleak. I really like the lush lawns, where in the evening you can find people playing Frisbee, practicing the bagpipe or just sitting around. The school is also not very big, but there is enough space between buildings to make sending someone back to her hall of residence ‘a walk to remember’.
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